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tracyloveswork · 7 years ago

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Rise of the Poor Image

Interview with Zack Rosenberg, Trust﹠Safety/Community Representative, Tumblr and Amanda Brennan “Meme librarian”, Content﹠Community Associate, Tumblr

In Hito Steyerl’s essay, “Defense of the Poor Image,” she suggests that the worth of a digital image could be judged on its speed and penetration rather than resolution. In this case, we would give the greatest worth to the poorest image of all, the GIF.

An early file format for the internet, the GIF could provide a simple animation without requiring a plug-in at a small file size. With the onset of Flash and greater bandwidth, the use of the GIF fell out of favor but endured on message boards and forums. It’s ability to portray small loops of visual data found a new life embedded in online conversations. Its resurgence is due to its ability to translate information into a distilled and often entertaining format. It stands in the place of words.

Vintage Dancing Baby GIF

In Wim Crouwel’s “Type Design of the Computer Age” he felt that the computers will bring the development of new characters and communication symbols. This has come to be, but not through reinventing fonts, but through the creation of memes, emoticons and reactionary GIFs. This could be the universal pictorial language that Charles Bliss was seeking with his Blissymbolics.

The speed and penetration images can obtain on the internet, also has concerns for the creator. Steyerl speaks to how piracy is a threat to mainstream channels but can also provide exposure to works that are considered less commercial. How does a creator balance the threat and the benefit?

The Falcon goes into hyperdrive.

Many digital copies are also cut, edited and transformed into new works. This could be considered transformative but it could be appropriating. In the age of social networks and fandoms, how does someone protect their work?

Tumblr is a social network built around the idea of microblogging. Small digestible bits of media, a quote or a link are shared amongst followers. It invites discourse through posts versus the long diatribes you see on other blog platforms. It is also known for its audience’s embrace of the GIF.

Hope you like cats…

Tumblr is known for posting quick little things, microblogging and lots of sharing of media. Is that how you guys see yourselves?

Zack: I always like how it was explained to me, and how I explain it when I am on panels. Whether you are a creator or someone who is passionate about something, you are a curator of content that you believe in.

It’s almost like creating a museum of my personal passions. When you go to my blog it’s about my dog, really tasty food or comics and animation. It encompasses process… And what I mean by process is how to make an illustration or something move. The platform really goes into that well... as that backend look at how things are made.

To really boil it down, it’s my own museum of what I like.

Amanda: The way we frame it from the marketing side, is that Tumblr is a place to share your passion. And you can be passionate about a TV show, about food, about dogs… But this is where you go to meet the people who share your interests. And really dive into the community of people who love the thing as much as you do.

Original Longcat

And to compare it to something like Pinterest… When I think of someone who is using Pinterest, it’s usually a mom looking for a recipe or someone looking for a workout, or someone looking for wedding stuff. Here on Tumblr, it is more like that fandom activity where people are looking for TV show gifs or the latest Honey post. You might find that on meme site, or FB, but Tumblr is where people get a little weird and shout out their deepest weird feelings about the thing that they love.

Zack: To add to that… I think it is about creating content to have a conversation. Which adds another layer and what I find fascinating (and we talk about this in our metrics panels) is that people are sharing feelings and posting entire conversations in tags or gifs. And driving this sense of unity... because “I feel that too”… I feel that same thing via this fandom or this thing happening in the world. Let’s connect and join together and have a community of friends strictly on the platform.

It’s almost like it’s own visual language with emoticons and the memes. You can really have a whole conversation.

Zack: I can pull conversations, and they are just all GIFs. We are just responding to each other based on reactions from our favorite types of media. It’s such a fascinating cultural thing that we have gotten ourselves into.

Gleeful Wonder Woman

Apple just installed a feature where can pull GIFs directly into your responses and making that more accessible. Seeing that trend being baked into other products and how Tumblr contributed to that, is a cool accomplishment.

Amanda: If you are thinking about a GIF as language, there is a really good talk by Kenyatta Cheese on how they have come to define language. And how it evolved both with the internet and as a file format.

Zack: He dressed as an internet meme… that blew my mind.

Amanda: The culture has involved so much. I just got back from a cat convention. While I was there I presented a talk on the history of cats on the internet.

We started 1998 with the first use of emoticon cats in Japan, then we go through Long Cat, Nyan Cat, LOL Cat and Pusheen. And in the back row of this event, there were these women with gray hair and they all had they all had their flat Instagram cats.

Nyan Cat

At the end, I asked everyone who had participated in this sort of thing to send their URL and posted them on screen. Most people had 10-20k followers on Instagram, including these older women who you wouldn’t think of as someone who is very active on social media, but here they are… Coming to a convention to meet people their “cat crew”… with the flat cats. They are really owning their identity on social media. And this very heavy image focused community of cats. It was a weird time.

Zack: I am so jealous…

I understand because I am crazy dog owner. My fiance runs a Groot, my dog, Instagram blog. It’s as if it’s him talking and enjoying the world.

She has created a persona of him where he is writing the blog and his followers have been increasing by 10-15 each week. That is pretty good because it is just a back-burner project. One post a day kind of thing. It’s just funny to see how it is contributing to that dog community. Other dog blogs follow him… which is like surreal to me. People doing the same exact thing with their dogs. And I find that awesome.

Pusheen!

What I find interesting about what you just said, Amanda, is that there is a history to the cats on the internet. It seems you are trying to give credit to people who created these images. There are so many floating around without regard for ownership... People taking things and appropriating ideas.

Zack: And that’s my department. I am a trust and safety agent and a community representative in terms of trust and safety. Part of the job is moderating anything that infringes on copyright, DCMA, and that inlcudes GIFs. Technically there has been no legal precedence over how a sense of ownership goes over a GIF.

Because they are almost transformative…

Zack:They are transformative enough to be your own content, so we are actually going to honor people’s ownership. We have certain policies and procedures that can prove that you created the GIF first. We all have that metadata, that is not user-facing. People often come back with “that is from a movie, how can they have ownership over a GIF.” One, there is no legal precedence and two, it is transformative enough by law to be considered fair use and their property.

It’s like sampling in music.

Zack: Yeah… It’s a very interesting case. For one, most people do not understand copyright law… like just the general public… Which is a challenge in itself. We can’t educate users because that will put us in a gray area if they misinterpret what we say. We can only point them in the right direction. So often we will be like “now is a good time to read about copyright law, here’s a link.” We give them more of an informed direction.

Need a Nap

There’s a lot of interesting things going on with people who are creating their own content on Tumblr in how we define that sense of ownership and who owns what. There was a famous court case where (and we love to tell this story at our panels at Comic-Con) a guy was traveling overseas and a monkey took his camera. The monkey took a bunch of pictures with his camera. Eventually, he got his camera back and posted the photos online. A bunch of outlets took the photo and posted it. He felt it was copyright infringement, but a judge ruled that because he didn’t take the pictures, it wasn’t. The monkey took the pictures and the monkey owned the copyright. And that’s it. You have to be the one to create the visual aspect. And that’s an interesting aspect to how we distribute content. Especially when it comes to photos.

And then there are certain parameters when it comes to the more dark web stuff… like privacy infringement. California specifically has changed privacy laws in response to the internet. We are generally heavy-handed when addressing privacy because we don’t want to be in the position of potentially breaking any laws. And that isn’t just photos. It’s phone numbers and other information that would not be public.

I could chew your ear off on policy all day…

How does a privacy policy work with memes?

Amanda: It’s so hard. I have been doing meme work now since 2011. We have shifted from “Oh, these are random images floating around the internet”, like Nyan Cat and Long cat. All of the old cat memes… No one knows the names of those cats or who owns those cats. It’s very hard to track down the information because someone just put it online on Funny Junk or some other site. People think that it can’t be traced back to me, because no one should know who I am on the internet.

Then as Facebook rolled out and the internet became more prevalent in our daily lives, things shifted. That’s when people became like “Oh, I have ownership of my internet content.” And that shift into “I own this and this is my copyright, and you can’t steal it.” has started happening. And we saw that as YouTube rose and the appearances of “Grumpy Cat”. That’s when the owners were like “This is my cat, this is my content I am making about my cat.” They got this micro-fame where they were able to turn it into money. You saw this with YouTubers like Tyler Oakley, who was able to build a brand on his internet content.

This was about the time when Fuck Jerry started to become popular. Fuck Jerry started on Tumblr as a meme repost site and Instagram account that steals everything from everywhere, and isn’t concerned with copyright. "It’s out there and now it’s mine". He has built a whole empire and made tons of money. His empire is built on stealing.

Haters Gonna Hate

There was also copyright issues around the dress. The dress that broke the internet. The girl who posted the photo did not take the picture and did not own the photo.

Zack: I remember that day because I was called down and asked: “Do you see this?” And I thought I was going crazy. I saw “blue/black”.

Amanda: I saw both… my eyes kept flipping back and forth… I really thought I was dying.

And the trend now is private facebook groups where people are making and sharing content. Then if it gets out and becomes a really big thing, do you want to admit that you made this thing in a secret FB group? The copyright thing gets blurry. Some people want to say “I own this thing and I am going to shout to the ends of the earth” and some are like “hmmm… I guess I made that. I am just going to step away from it and let the internet have it.”

Zack: There really are those two polar opposites. Working directly with it, there are people who understand the copyright laws and procedures. You swear an oath when you file a DMCA claim so we (Tumblr) are not liable. It’s a dispute between the two parties. But doing that scares a lot of people and that’s legitimate. There are people who say “I made this content” but I am not comfortable swearing an oath. Or I don’t have any proof of where it came from. There’s nothing we can do and it’s at the offending parties digression to remove the content.

Brain Freeze

The trend that I’ve been seeing, and you will see this in a lot of GIFs, people have their specific kind of signature. You’ll have these translucent tags to their blog or a copyright watermark symbol.

That trend has become more and more apparent because creators want that sense of ownership. It’s really a part of meme and GIF culture. We ask “How did you create this or make it look that way?” so we can confirm it is transformative. And then they can add a signature to it.

When we speak with artists, such as comic artists at our Comic-Con panels, we tell them “That’s the biggest thing you should do.” To prevent people from reposting or taking credit for your content, just add your name so it can’t be easily removed from the images or cropped out. It’s evolved to the point where people feel they need to protect what they create. Which is fair.

Protecting your ideas is important but there’s great benefit to people getting their stuff out there as well.

Zack: Certainly. Exposure is nice. If you are a creator and you want your content to be seen, you should put up as much as you can. If it ever comes to protecting your work, you do have that right.

I hear people say, “I don’t use Tumblr because my content is always reposted.” My response is that there is a team working around the clock to protect your content. You don’t have to file any type of government papers, as long as you are 100% sure that it’s your content, it’s safe. If that is someone’s reservation, what’s stopping you?

Every company legally has to have a team to protect from infringement and misattribution. Regardless.

Find your reactionary GIF

Click a button to display reactionary GIFs.

As they appear, you can click on individual GIFs to toggle between animate and pause.

Add a reaction:

Submit

// Create array var topics = ["wut", "dramatic", "dramatic chihuahua", "omg", "shocked"]; // Functions function renderGIFButtons() { // Clear buttons before appending $("#displayGIFButtons").empty(); // Loop through topics array for (i=0; i < topics.length; i++) { console.log(topics[i]); // Create button var a = $("<button class=\"giphy_button\">"); // Add class of topic a.addClass("topics"); // Add data-attribute a.attr("data-name", topics[i]); // Add text to button a.text(topics[i]); // Append buttons to div displayGIFButtons $("#displayGIFButtons").append(a); } } // Add topic to array $("#submitGIFButton").on("click", function(){ // This line prevents the page from refreshing when a user hits "enter". event.preventDefault(); // Get input var newTopic = $("#addTopic").val().trim(); // Add to topics array topics.push(newTopic); // Clear input field $("#addTopic").val(""); // Reset buttons renderGIFButtons(); }); // Function to display Gifs on click function displayGifs() { // Get topic name from button var topic = $(this).attr("data-name"); // Build url to use in query to API var queryURL = "https://api.giphy.com/v1/gifs/search?q=" + topic + "&api_key=dc6zaTOxFJmzC&limit=10"; // Clear old Gifs $("#gifImages").empty(); // Ajax and API $.ajax({ url: queryURL, method: "GET" }).done(function(response) { console.log(response); // Create loop to create divs for the 10 gifs in the response array for (i=0;i<response.data.length;i++) { // Create div for gif var gifDiv = $("<div class=\"giffy\">"); // Create variable for rating var gifRating = response.data[i].rating; console.log(gifRating); gifRating = gifRating.toUpperCase(); // Create and populate p to hold rating var printRating = $("<p>").text("Rating: " + gifRating); // Append to gifDiv gifDiv.append(printRating); // Get image urls var imgURL = response.data[i].images.original.url; var imgURL_still = response.data[i].images.original_still.url; // Create img var imgGif = $("<img height=\"200px\"data-state=\"still\" class=\"gif\"/>"); imgGif.attr("src", imgURL_still); imgGif.attr("data-still", imgURL_still); imgGif.attr("data-animate", imgURL); //Append to gifDiv gifDiv.append(imgGif); // Append gifDiv to gifImages div on page $("#gifImages").append(gifDiv); } }); } // Create initial buttons on page renderGIFButtons(); // Adding click event listeners to all elements with a class topics because the buttons are created dynamically $(document).on("click", ".topics", displayGifs); // Toggle animation on gif $(document).on("click",".gif", function() { // Create variable to get image state var state = $(this).attr("data-state"); console.log(state); // Check and see if it is animating or not if (state == "still") { // Change to animating src and change data-state $(this).attr("src", $(this).attr("data-animate")); $(this).attr("data-state", "animate"); } else { // Change to still src and change data-state $(this).attr("src", $(this).attr("data-still")); $(this).attr("data-state", "still"); } })

References/Links

Bad Monday

Steyerl, Hito. “In Defense of the Poor Image,” in The Wretched of the Screen. Eflux.com. Eflux, n.d. Web.

Kenyatta Cheese. “How Visual Media Affect Culture and Identity Globally”. You Tube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhN2Be4SPoE

Tumbler’s Fandometrics

Okrent, Arika. “In the Land of Invented Languages: A Celebration of Linguistic Creativity, Madness, and Genius”, Chapter 15, “Those Queer and Mysterious Chinese Characters”, pages 160-172. Spiegel﹠Grau Trade Paperbacks, 2010

Tumblr’s Meme Librarian Has the Best Job on the Internet. Washington Post.

How much is too much? Considering infringement

Further Exploration

Contents of Maggie Stiefvater’s Brain: Post on Piracy

Fandom | Funyuns | Onion Flavored Rings

Totino’s - Live Free. Couch Hard.

Gushers

FIAT USA: Archive

adamjk serious blog

drawing megan lynn

Check, Please!

Obama Transformative Piece

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debrahnesbit · 5 years ago

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The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 13: Digital Charter or Chart: A Conversation With Teresa Scassa on the Canada Digital Charter

Years of public consultation on Canadian digital policy hit an important milestone last week as Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains released the government’s Digital Charter. Canada’s Digital Charter touches on a wide range of issues, covering everything from universal Internet access to privacy law reform. To help sort through the digital charter and its implications, I’m joined on the podcast this week by Professor Teresa Scassa, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, where she holds the Canada Research Chair in Information Law and Policy.

The podcast can be downloaded here and is embedded below. The transcript is posted at the bottom of this post or can be accessed here. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify or the RSS feed. Updates on the podcast on Twitter at @Lawbytespod.

Episode Notes:

Canada’s Digital Charter Canada’s Digital Charter Represents a Sea Change in Privacy Law, But Several Unaddressed Issues Remain

Credits:

The Canadian Press, Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains Introduces Digital Charter CBC News, Security, Control Over Personal Data Outlined in Canada’s New Digital Charter FactPointVideo, Trudeau Announces Digital Charter to Fight Fake News, Online Hate

Transcript:

LawBytes Podcast – Episode 13 | Convert audio-to-text with Sonix

Michael Geist: This is LawBytes, a podcast with Michael Geist.

Navdeep Bains: We can’t ignore some of these new complex challenges that have emerged. At the heart of these new challenges is the fundamental question of trust. How can Canadians believe in the good of this online world when they’re confronted with a video of 51 innocent people gunned down during prayer in Christchurch and that video goes viral. How can they trust their data will be used to improve their lives when it is used to bombard them with disinformation. Here’s the thing: innovation cannot happen at the expense of privacy and data and personal security. I’m happy today to present Canada’s new digital charter.

Michael Geist: Years of public consultation on Canadian digital policy hit an important milestone last week as Innovation Science and Economic Development minister Navdeep Bains released the Government’s Digital charter. Touching on a wide range of issues, Canada’s digital charter features 10 guiding principles: universal access, safety and security, control and consent, transparency portability and interoperability, open and modern digital government, a level playing field, data and digital for good, strong democracy, freedom from hate and violent extremism, and finally strong enforcement and real accountability. To help sort through the digital charter and its implications, I’m joined on the podcast this week by Professor Teresa Scassa a friend and colleague at the University of Ottawa. Professor Scassa holds the Canada Research Chair in Information Law and Policy. She writes frequently on information and data issues at her Web site at teresascassa.ca, appears regularly in the media and before House of Commons committees and serves on several key advisory boards and panels including Waterfront Toronto’s Digital Strategy Advisory Panel and the newly created federal A.I. Advisory Council.

Michael Geist: Teresa, welcome to the podcast.

Teresa Scassa: Thank you for having me.

Michael Geist: It’s great to have you. So we’re recording this at the end of a week in which the innovation science and economic development minister Navdeep Bains has been off selling the digital charter in Toronto and Montreal. It’s been in the news regularly and so I want to talk a bit about the charter and I guess consider whether or not Canadians ought to be buying what the Minister’s been selling. What do we start with a little bit of background though. What is the digital charter.

CBC News: The Federal Government is launching a new digital charter to protect, they say, Canadians personal data. Ottawa is promising changes to federal privacy laws to give Canadians more control over their personal information when it’s collected by technology companies. The government laid out a series of principles today they say will guide changes to the Privacy Act. The changes will also include penalties and fines for tech and social media companies that breach the new privacy law. So does that mean the government will start fining Facebook right away. When can Canadians expect these new protections to kick in?

Teresa Scassa: The digital charter is built around 10 principles that are intended to guide the government’s digital strategy going forward. So so they called it a digital charter. They’ve they’ve set out these principles and. And. Yeah. And that’s that’s essentially what it is. And the principles are are somewhat broad principles. But the I guess the issue you hear the hesitation my voice the issue I have with the digital charter is that I don’t like the word the use of the word charter in there because I would see it. I would call it a digital chart. It’s a roadmap right. It’s here are some principles that are guiding us as we develop policy. And that’s fine. And there are interesting principles and they will shape or guide policy but a charter is the charter is a document that confers rights and entitlements and often those are actionable rights. And so there are things in this digital charter that maybe should be rights but aren’t there just principles like Canadians should have universal access not Canadians have a right to access. Right. So so you know it may sound a little bit like quibbling but I think that if we’re serious about ff something like a charter articulating the basic rights that Canadians should have in a digital society. This isn’t the document. This is a roadmap to developing digital digital strategies digital policy. And it may be an interesting roadmap but it’s not a charter.

Michael Geist: This is a really interesting perspective. So it’s a road map or a charter it sometimes has almost a checklist. Yeah kind of feel on a whole sort of issues including universal access and the privacy issues and open government and those sorts of things so given that it is not that charter in the sense that one might typically think of something conferring rights. I take it this is a bit more aspirational in terms of where were they where the government says they could be going as opposed to resulting in something immediate.

Navdeep Bains: It’s going to be very difficult to pass any legislation at this point. What we’ve done is proposed policies and changes to the privacy legislation that we’d like to implement in a timely manner. Clearly there is very limited runway in the legislative agenda for this session. So the hope is for putting in our platform and also in the next mandate as well if we’re fortunate enough to earn the trust of Canadians.

Teresa Scassa: It’s almost like a political platform. Given that an election is six months. It’s it’s basically saying this is this is what we’re thinking where we’d like to go. These are the you know the values that will underpin what we’re going to do in terms of digital strategy and so all of that’s well and good. And. you know and I think it’s it’s good to set those out so but that’s what it has the feel of. I mean there are things in there that that aren’t new. Again the concept of universal access how long have we’ve been talking about universal access in Canada. How long have we been talking about. Well you mentioned privacy but privacy isn’t actually one of the principles. Control or consent is a principle. Better enforcement of all rights not just the privacy rights is a principle but there isn’t actually a principle that says that talks about privacy as a as a right. It’s it’s about aspects of data protection essentially.

Michael Geist: Oh that’s right. What do we actually go there and talk a bit about the privacy side which is which was certainly one of the aspects of the chart or charter that included a full background paper and the Minister has been talking quite a lot about it. So obviously got a fair amount of attention. Knowing the Privacy Commissioner of Canada was out speaking this week also had major privacy conference and was talking about the need for a rights based framework. Do you have the sense that the minister that the minister and the government are on the same page as where the privacy commissioner wants to go?

Teresa Scassa: No no. I think that what we have in the document from ISED about reforming paper essentially is is a discussion of the reform of a data protection statute. It’s data protection reform it’s not a human rights based approach to privacy or to digital rights more generally it is. It is a set of reforms to data protection laws and that may sound like a subtle distinction but I do think I do think it’s it’s an interesting and important one. We don’t actually have a right to a broad right of privacy that’s contained in that in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms there’s a right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure so there’s a search and seizure related privacy right that comes up in a number of different contexts mostly related to law enforcement. There’s been some discussion around whether the right to life liberty and security the person has a privacy dimension but it’s not extensive. If there is one and so we don’t have sort of a broader right or a set of principles around privacy.

Teresa Scassa: One of the things that I think is interesting and I and I find entirely absent from this and not just this but other kind of data protection oriented things is is this is the is any addressing of the issue of surveillance. Individuals to a completely unprecedented extent or being exposed to surveillance both by the private sector. We hear a lot about surveillance capitalism and surveillance in the context of smart cities but there is just a massive data collection which is a form of private sector surveillance. And the part that doesn’t ever get talked about a great deal is the extent to which government has back channels into all of that private sector data and can carry out various forms of surveillance using those back channels for access and I’m not saying they’re gonna illicit back channels but they can get you know judicial authority authorizations or warrants and there have been disputes in the past about whether they need warrants for access to some of that information. But there are routes by which government can access the massive amounts of data in the hands of the private sector and some of those channels are set up very explicitly in the data protection laws and these are the exceptions to the requirements for consent. And so you know I think this is a part of data protection how it gets ignored which is that these exceptions to consent expand and the channels and the routes are there and the amount of data that’s being collected by the private sector expand and we never really talk about what we need to do to what kind of frameworks we need and place what kind of additional protections we need in place to manage the significant changes in both the volume of data in the hands of the private sector and the interest in government and having access to it. And I do think that we need to be thinking about that.

Teresa Scassa: So you know if you want to talk about our human rights based approach to to. Privacy legislation. I’d like to see a right to be free from unjustified surveillance. And then I’d like to see what that looks like in practical terms. So this is something I think that we don’t see in the digital charter and we don’t see it in this discussion about PIPEDA and it doesn’t get talked about a great deal but I do think it is a very significant issue and one that will I think have continue to have or may have greater ramifications for example when you get data.

Teresa Scassa: When we get more standardized data for example open banking and standardized financial information it’s gonna be very tempting for governments to to. To analyze large volumes of data looking for red flags or looking for patterns in the way that they now get tower dump warrants for example and and look for things within the data that they collect. And again that’s data from the private sector. So that’s a little bit of a side issue it’s not in any of these documents but to me I think this is something that we don’t talk about enough and we don’t think about enough and it’s it’s the relationship between all of that private sector data and government and how we are going to manage that relationship in a way that that that that is in the public interest. But that also protects our rights.

Michael Geist: That’s an interesting perspective and it strikes me that this document particularly the privacy background stuff not only does not address that issue but it’s focused primarily on private sector and presumably the minister would say well that’s where my constitutional responsibilities are but whether we’re talking about the political parties and the ongoing gap there or even the Privacy Act which they have also said that we’re prepared to take a look at after decades of really not doing very much the focal point in terms of saying we’re going to modernize these rules is almost entirely private sector focused without really looking internally at the government itself.

Teresa Scassa: Yeah. And I do think that’s really I think that’s really important because the two are now very very closely linked and in so many different ways. And you and you can see the the interaction of public and private sector again in things like Sidewalk Toronto where there’s you know there’s an increasing overlap between the things that government do and the things that the private sector do and the things that they do together and and data caught in between and so I think this is becoming more and more of a challenging issue. And so it’s true. You mentioned political parties I mean there’s that there’s a little bit in the statement about the or the document about the reform of PIPEDA that talks about how it might be necessary to look at whether the application of PIPEDA needs to be changed because there are more and more non-profit organizations that are engaged in data collection. And I was reading that and I thought this would be a place to mention political parties but they’re not there, whether they’re nonprofit organs they fall under that umbrella of non-profit organizations that we need to think about or look about. Look look at whether it’s meant to fall under that I don’t know but it’s not there in any explicit term.

Michael Geist: And that’s you know it’s been difficult to get governments of all political stripes to focus internally once they get into office. It seems like making changes whether it’s on the access information side or on the privacy side is far more challenging. And I suppose it’s easier to get other people to to measure up and even that’s been difficult in terms of PIPEDA reform. When I think of the early stages of PIPEDA it talked about trying to strike a balance. Business considerations and the like and that was the way we understood business and e-commerce back in the 1990s and we clearly have some different conceptions and different models today. Can you talk a bit about some of the kinds of things the government is talking about from an updating perspective and perhaps are welcome but that are open and perhaps even long overdue in terms of some of the changes they’re trying to make.

Teresa Scassa: Yeah. And I think the government has taken a serious look at at some of the challenges the need for modernization there are things in here that look a little bit like some of the things that are in the the famous GDPR that everybody’s talking about. And so for example there are some of the interesting things I mean there is there’s talk about things like data portability although it’s referred to as data mobility and that’s the idea of it’s partly data it’s data protection in the sense of giving individuals more control over their data. But it also I think is linked to both consumer protection and competition law. So it’s one of those things that’s a little bit broader in terms of its scope and the idea is that individuals would be able to take their data from one company and bring it to a new company entering the market that that will then be able to with that data be able to offer them comparable a comparable level of customized service for example. And so so there’s some discussion of data mobility it’s interesting it’s a little bit different from the GDPR in that they’re not talking about data in machine readable format but talking about data in standardized format which is a little bit different and maybe a little bit more case by case industry by industry. And so. So that’s interesting. So data mobility is one aspect there’s some discussion of.

Teresa Scassa: There’s a little bit of discussion about the right to be forgotten but they’re not going there fully because there’s a court case before the Federal Court of Canada but. But it’s. That this might be something that reputational rights and linked to that the right to have information deleted for individuals asked that their information be deleted which is a dimension of that. There’s some discussion about algorithmic. Well I was gonna say algorithmic transparency but perhaps a right to explanation of automated decision making. And so again that’s something I think that people are concerned about and interested in. There’s also discussion about making changes to the rules around consent in a variety of different ways to try and make individual control over personal data more manageable so both reducing the amount of information that’s pushed at consumers and making it more accessible and easy to understand but also providing other other means by which individuals can manage their personal information and there’s some you know there’s some interesting stuff also about relying on standards and data trusts and other sorts of mechanisms to allow for management of personal information. So there’s quite a lot of stuff in there and I think it’s all thoughtful and these are you know these are directions that we need to be thinking about in terms of data protection. But that’s a lot. There’s a lot.

Michael Geist: There is, I mean a lot of this really would would significantly change some of the approaches that we’ve had in the past and some of some of the kinds of things around algorithms and data mobility or portability feel pretty responsive to both open banking or some of the emerging business models that are out there. The changes to consent of caught some people’s attention and not in a good way made people think consent is the bedrock of what privacy laws are supposed to look like and this one seems to suggest that at least the government here is suggesting and consent isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. You’re always looking for consent in every instance and a lot of people are effectively consenting to things and have no real idea what they’re consenting to. What’s your thoughts on on shifting towards more transparency and better ways of managing one’s data without necessarily saying that it’s got to be consent in every situation.

Michael Geist: I mean frankly I think consent is broken the way it’s currently dealt with under in practice and under the legislation. I mean nobody can manage. Nobody has the time or the energy to manage information. And you know and in fact so many services are tied to consent. Right. You can’t proceed to get the service unless you agree to the terms and conditions and the privacy policy so that it’s not even a free choice if you actually you need to do something. You need to agree to the form it’s not like you get to negotiate it. So consent with respect to what’s happening to personal information I think becomes really quite meaningless in those contacts. So there’s. something in there that talks about taking consent out of contracts for the services which is interesting so separating the agreement to the service and the agreement to privacy that’s that’s an interesting development. And so I don’t see this as being negative with respect to consent if it’s not working right now and if people are consenting left and right as you say to anything just to get access to the service or just because there’s simply too much of a burden to manage all of this and frankly then you have to read the privacy policies and understand them and it’s that’s you know that’s not an easy thing to do. So I think that finding ways to make consent more manageable and to reduce the burden on individuals I think is important.

Michael Geist: And it’s interesting I think we’re gonna end up with quite a battle there certainly from some who say you can’t you simply can’t abandon that model although I’m inclined to agree that too often the consent models feel completely illusory.

Teresa Scassa: Yeah.

Michael Geist: You’re consenting as a matter of course without reading it’s certainly not an informed consent. And we’ve seen that play out a number of times. Say even with the anti spam legislation where suddenly people were inundated with messages from organizations where they were purported to obtain some form of consent that was consistent with where the law was at. And it turned out that most people weren’t even aware that someone had ever thought that they’d given it that kind of consent. So once people were actually made aware of it. So hold on a second. This might try to find new mechanisms to ensure that people’s perspectives or views are better reflected in terms of how their information is managed which perhaps holds some promise.

Teresa Scassa: It does hold some promise and there’s there’s discussion in the document about it increase expanding the areas for example where fines can be levied so on the enforcement side and consent is specifically mentioned for one of those so if if consent is obtained. To the or if an individual is sharing information but doesn’t consent to certain uses and the information is used for those purposes anyway or disclosed it without the consent then there may actually be the potential to to address that with fines which would certainly strengthen them which would strengthen the consent that’s being given because as you say right now you know whether what happens. I mean there’s two things. One is we may be consenting the vision of what we’re consenting to may be quite different from the reality of what we’ve consented to and that’s one problem. So that you actually have technically agreed to a whole range of disclosures that you didn’t mean to agree to. But there’s also the situation where you know you go in and you actually take the time to fix your privacy default settings and do all of this and then you find out after the fact that the information was used for purposes that you didn’t agree to. And there’s not much recourse except right now a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner which will lead to a series of findings that say that shouldn’t have happened.

Michael Geist: Right. I’m glad you raised the issue of enforcement and would feel sometimes like the futility of filing complaints when all you’re left with is well-founded finding and starting from scratch at the federal court if you want something more. The government has emphasized the enforcement.

CBC News: How will what you’re proposing be enforced. What kind of penalties will your government establish.

Navdeep Bains: That was a key part of the changes that I talked about today. It was really about strong enforcement so significant and meaningful penalties maybe a percentage of revenue and we’re gonna be looking at other jurisdictions as well. We’re also going to be looking at how two companies even collect data or revenue and if they do not follow the privacy laws in this country we’re going to make it difficult for them not only to collect the revenue but collect data as well and this sends a very clear signal signal that enforcement is very important part of the changes that were proposing.

Michael Geist: It seems to me that part of that may be driven by the news cycle and the recent Cambridge Analytica Facebook set of findings from the B.C. and Federal Privacy Commissioner in which Facebook response to those findings was well thanks but we’re not really that interested. And so the government now says we’re talking about real enforcement in fact I think I’ve heard Navdeep Bains talk about potentially global revenues and sort of modelling on the European approach and even talked about 5 percent I think in one interview which would suggest even higher than what we see out of Europe. What’s your what’s your view generally on our ability to get large global platforms to pay attention to Canadian privacy law and is the lack of enforcement one of the challenge room the real challenges we faced.

Teresa Scassa: Yeah I think lack of enforcement has generally has been a challenge across the board not just with large platforms but but right across the board and in fact you know it may be even more acute with you know medium to smaller businesses in the sense that a lot of the large platforms are now paying attention to the GDPR and GDPR compliance and are at not just platforms but any large company in Canada that does business across borders is going to be you know raising their standards to the most stringent standards which are currently GDPR. And so we’ll probably benefit indirectly from from that. So I do think. But I do think that having stricter stronger enforcement measures not only will encourage greater compliance with the legislation because frankly if there isn’t really a consequence to not complying then why would you go to the expense of complying. And there is an expense there. So I think that that should make that should make a difference and I think it also may help with a general sense of futility and disempowerment among the broader population when it comes to when it comes to privacy the sense that you know people want if something goes wrong people want and they have a statute that says this is how it’s supposed to be. You know if nothing happens if there are no consequences then that’s actually I think extremely disheartening and discouraging and this document talks about trust and the importance of building trust and this idea that Canadians are going to need to be able to trust when they share these enormous quantities of personal information with companies that that that it is being dealt with appropriately so I do think the enforcement piece is appropriate there how much of a difference it will actually make people know that Facebook and other large companies are being fined left and right in Europe and and in the United States so we’ll see how much impact that has on changing things I think it will have. I think it will slowly have an impact.

Teresa Scassa: That’s an excellent point. It’s really this notion between the large global platforms and the SMEs. I was reading I think was just this morning a piece in TheLogic, a digital publication focusing on the innovation economy in Canada, that was reflecting on the collision conference that took place in Toronto and they had asked a lot of CEOs and others about the charter and specifically about the privacy reforms and the response was actually exactly what you just raised. Those that are playing in a global environment said we’re already focused on GDPR like requirements and those enforcement measures. And so as long as the Canadian rules are kind of sufficiently similar or at least recognizable based on the kinds of obligations we face globally this isn’t anything particularly new. But some of the SMEs that pay far less attention potentially to some of these rules. This these may be game changers in terms of the kinds of things they’re required to do.

Teresa Scassa: Yeah that’s right. And you know it’s always been whenever PIPEDA reform has come up in the past and it’s come up so many times. It’s always been this idea that it was going to have too much of a negative effect on business. And I think SMEs were a big part of that that it that it was going to have this and that it was simply going to be too costly and was going to harm business because the cost of compliance would not be feasible. Now I think the cost of non-compliance is going up. We’re seeing more and more class action lawsuits for example in Canada a really rapidly growing number of class action lawsuits in Canada over data breaches and other mishandling of personal information. So you know I think that yes there are the costs of non-compliance are there and are growing not just. It’s not just all about PIPEDA. It’s what’s also happening in other contexts too.

Michael Geist: I think that’s right. One of the other things that’s happening right now of course isn’t just the privacy side and one of things that was notable I think about the way even this charter was launched was prime minister started talking about it even before Navdeep Bains did and his point of emphasis wasn’t on the privacy side to a significant extent at all it was more focused on dealing with concerns surrounding hate online and extremism.

Justin Trudeau: Here’s the reality. People are losing trust in digital institutions for a whole host of reasons. They’re anxious about the future of tech and the future of data from emotional contagion experiments to major privacy breaches. These concerns are absolutely valid.

Michael Geist: We’ve seen a big shift in terms of the government talking points on this and clearly the Prime Minister’s interests on this. Can you talk a bit about what the charter has to say about regulating social media companies or finding ways to deal with the harms online in a way that we at least up until recently hadn’t seen our government talking about.

Teresa Scassa: Yeah and it’s interesting that this has become you know this. This has also captured so much attention and you know I find it interesting also that the focus is on hate and extremism and I think you know those are important things to be addressing. So I don’t mean to diminish that at all. There’s also the whole disinformation and other sorts of toxic behaviours online. There’s those raised some really big challenges and they raise challenges I think that are going to you know bring us sharply up against freedom of expression values on the one hand and on the other hand they’re also going to raise questions about how we’re actually going to do this. And you see this a little bit in the right to be forgotten. Because it’s one thing to talk about a right to be forgotten in the privacy context and then when you’re going to implement it. I mean there’s a whole you. There’s you almost have, you have to turn to the platforms and it’ll be the same thing with dealing with hate and extremism and misinformation is there is going to have to be some sort of relationship with the platforms in order to deal with that or to manage it. And so I think that it’s going to be interesting to see how that that’s not going to be easy.

Michael Geist: No it’s not. We’ve seen some jurisdictions that may not have charter like rules take pretty aggressive positions in terms of the kinds of expectations they have for some of these platforms or intermediaries. Let’s take action against this kind of content. It was striking that one country that sort of stayed to the sidelines a little bit in the United States at least with the recent efforts post Christchurch. Part of that may be the companies are based there but part of it quite clearly is that they’ve got First Amendment rights there that may find themselves quickly conflicting with some of the expectations that we see bubbling up. I think you’re right to raise the charter. Canada, at least this Government, has moved itself more and more towards the more aggressive approach, at least in terms of some of the rhetoric but we still do have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms here that may significantly constrain our ability to at least mandate certain kinds of actions.

Teresa Scassa: Yeah. And I think I mean I think I do think Canada has been maybe better at finding a balance and more open to finding a balance and I think that the the way in which our charter is drafted for example it does explicitly contain equality rights provisions and you know I think that the charter itself demands doesn’t put one right above another and demands a balance as well. So I do think that that may provide a different constitutional context but it’s it will be challenging and and it’ll be particularly challenging because it’s I think it’s going to be hard especially when you’re talking about the major platforms it’s going to be hard to do things on a piecemeal country specific basis. The global issues are going to be extremely complex because the message. You know it’s one thing if the message is coming from Canada and you know that that makes it a lot easier than if the message is coming from another country. So you know I think the global dimensions are going to make this incredibly challenging.

Michael Geist: Yeah I mean we think the Equustek case of course in Canada raised this issue of Canadian court orders applying outside of our jurisdiction. And you quickly devolved to a place where if every country gets to say these are the standards that we want to see applied to access to certain kinds of content and our expectation is full scale moderation by the large platforms you’re throwing out or losing a whole lot of freedom of expression along the way and media and finding places that may not have the same kind of cultural considerations or legal rules or safeguards in place started doing decisions for countries to do.

Teresa Scassa: Yeah. And then of course who are who are the the very low paid moderate haters who are reviewing the content and where are they located and you know what values influenced them and what kind of conditions are they working in and you know in some of that of course may shift to AI. But then you’ve got all of the you know. So this is this. This will be this is not gonna be solved overnight. And it’s not gonna be solved without controversy controversy either. But but but there you know there are really important issues and I think they’re becoming even more critical as we move forward. But yeah that that’s going to be tough.

Michael Geist: It is. I mean it feels like that’s the case for a lot of these issues here. I mean I come back to this description of here’s a chart where there was a lot of different things raised. There isn’t an immediacy to make changes in some instances in part because as you’ve mentioned we’re in an election year and so the clock has effectively run out on full legislative change and even something beyond that is less than legislation is still difficult. I’d be remiss before we close if I didn’t pick up on you just had a little brief reference to A.I. and that’s been one of the focal points in this as well and certainly of this government, which has made significant investments in A.I. and talked more and more about A.I. policy. You’ve been named as a member of the new A.I. Advisory Council one of our colleagues Ian Kerr another member of that council. Any thoughts on the role either the council or perhaps more broadly if it’s still early days there that Canada can play when it comes to some of these A.I. policies that in some ways raise some of the same kinds of global challenges.

Teresa Scassa: Yeah and I think it is early days so so there’s not a lot that I could say about the council itself. But I do think that there there are really two pieces one is the role that Canada can play internationally in influencing and in helping to develop approaches and ethical approaches and ethical guidelines and standards for artificial intelligence and sort of more global norms around the circumstances in which AI should or should not be used. And so there’s that international but there’s a domestic role as well. And I think that you know for example the government recently put in place its directive on automated decision making in the federal government which is a really interesting document. And there’s a great deal of thought went into it. And it’s meant to do to to guide and to shape how automated decision making will take place in government and we’re kidding we’re kidding ourselves if we’re if we think that that’s not already happening and that it’s not going to continue to happen and grow on a on a more significant scale. And that’s just the federal government we’ve got all of our provincial governments who are also you know looking at automated decision making and variety of forms so it’s here, it’s affecting our lives. There’s the whole private sector piece as well. So I know that the AI advisory council of course is not going to touch on what provincial governments do or any of that sort of thing. But but I think there is a tremendous amount of change that is happening and impacts that we are going to experience as a society. And and we need to be thinking about how we’re how we’re going to manage those changes how we’re going to to develop equitable fair processes and protocols whether the decision making is coming from government or from the private sector it’s going to have significant impacts in our lives. So yeah there’s a there’s no shortage of work to do on the side as well.

Michael Geist: No there’s not. Well you know I think I speak for a lot of people in a way grateful that you’re on that council and grateful for the the work you’ve been doing on these challenges whether it’s through your blog and your research and the writing that you’ve done. Thanks so much for joining us on the panel.

Teresa Scassa: Thank you.

Michael Geist: That’s the Law Bytes podcast for this week. If you have comments suggestions or other feedback, write to lawbytes.com. That’s lawbytes at pobox.com. Follow the podcast on Twitter at @lawbytespod or Michael Geist at @mgeist. You can download the latest episodes from my Web site at Michaelgeist.ca or subscribe via RSS, at Apple podcast, Google, or Spotify. The LawBytes Podcast is produced by Gerardo LeBron Laboy. Music by the Laboy brothers: Gerardo and Jose LeBron Laboy. Credit information for the clips featured in this podcast can be found in the show notes for this episode at Michaelgeist.ca. I’m Michael Geist. Thanks for listening and see you next time.

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iyarpage · 6 years ago

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6 Tips for Posting Content Anonymously

For one reason or another, you may find yourself wanting to publish things online anonymously. Now to some, the “A-word” conjures up images of hackers, Guy Fawkes masks, and people generally saying terrible things to each other on Twitter. There’s long been an ongoing debate about whether anonymity is something that should even be allowed on the Internet.

Yes. Yes it should. There’s no doubt that there are terrible people in the world; but anonymity is a powerful tool for good as well. Here are some of the more obvious examples:

Fighting the power: It sure would be nice if we lived in a world where everyone in every government had the people’s best interests at heart. We don’t, and they don’t. Ask Nelson Mandela, or any number of other great men and women throughout history who have fought for progress and human rights.

Exposing criminal activity: Whether you’re a crime blogger writing about the criminal underworld, or a whistleblower from some large corporation, exposing criminal activity is dangerous. People have died.

Adult content, and other “culturally offensive” themes: Something as simple as writing your own (very personal) memoirs can draw a lot of unwanted attention from those around you. Even if what you’re doing isn’t morally or ethically wrong by any reasonable standard, people aren’t always terribly understanding. And then, perhaps the people in your life would rather that their personal activities didn’t become public knowledge. Staying anonymous is a good way to avoid unnecessary drama, in cases like these.

Maybe it’s just work: One of my favorite blogs back in the day was Waiter Rant where a then-anonymous waiter told all of his juiciest stories. He stayed anonymous for the simple reason that his bosses didn’t want any extra drama at their restaurant. Besides, rude customers who might’ve just been having a really bad day don’t deserve the kind of hate the Internet can put out.

Not holding back: Webdesigner Depot runs a series of posts written anonymously called The Secret Designer. They’re anonymous, because they expose the underside of the web design industry that the writers don’t want to be associated with.

Now if any of this sounds familiar to long-time WDD readers, that may be because I addressed some of these points in The Ultimate Guide to Blogging some time back. I wanted to address the topic in a little bit more detail, and cover some more options we have for protecting our privacy. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Paranoia

The most common security point of failure always has been, and always will be people. You could be uncovered by some random screw-up you make yourself, or you could be outed by trusting the wrong person. Even people who would never hurt you on purpose can give things away by accident.

More commonly, people who supposedly want to remain anonymous get caught because they can’t help but brag. If this is something you’re committed to doing, you need to change your entire outlook on life. You can’t be Hackerman by night, and turn it off by day. You need to get paranoid, without acting obviously paranoid; because someone probably is out to get you, but they can tell if you start acting too paranoid.

Sounds fun, right? [/sarcasm] How do you know when you’re paranoid enough? Let’s start with the realization that doing everything on this list alone isn’t enough to keep you perfectly safe. This is a basic beginner’s guide at best.

Oh, and remember to avoid actually writing any identifying information in your actual content if you can help it. Just sayin’.

2. Avoid Big Platforms

Don’t use Google for e-mail, sign-ins, or anything else. Ditto Yahoo, Outlook.com, or basically any other major corporation. If they have a reputation for collecting your data and selling it, they’ll mostly likely sell it to the people you want to hide from.

The same goes for your publishing platform. Simply put, you want as much control over your data as possible. That means you shouldn’t give your data to Medium, Tumblr (which is owned by Yahoo), or even good old LiveJournal (yeah, that’s still a thing). The bigger corporations have a history of playing nice with other corporations, but they play especially nice with governments. They will not advocate for your privacy, or even for your life if you find yourself in that sort of situation.

Their PR teams might mutter something about human rights, but you’ll be human left-for-dead. (Sorry, I wanted to lighten the mood a bit.) In any case, most of these platforms probably don’t even want sensitive content associated with them, and will likely take it all down.

3. Hosting

So if you’re going to be buying hosting, here’s the criteria:

You want privacy nuts.

You want a hosting company that is willing to take the (legal) fight to whoever comes looking.

Ideally, it would be good if they believed in your cause, too. That will make them fight harder to protect your data.

You want your hosting to be in another country entirely. Distance is a good way of delaying people trying to track you down. It means less in this day of the Internet, but it still counts for something.

In general, these guys are pretty good options, and they’ve been around for some time:

IT Itch

Orange Website

Hosting by Anonymous Speech

It should be noted that secure hosting and adult-content-friendly hosting are not the same thing. If you need hosting for those racy memoirs or what-have-you-I’d-rather-not-know, you need to find a host that specifically allows you to host those things in their TOS.

4. Intermediaries

Now remember where I said to be careful who you trust? That still stands. Even so, you may find it incredibly helpful to find someone who can act as your intermediary. If you’re acting in a whistle-blower capacity, you might be able to find a foreign aid worker or activist to do things like help you buy hosting and domain names.

Having a third-party represent you can be indispensable to a smooth operation. But remember that if things are potentially life-threatening for you, it can also get hairy for them. You want someone either committed to your cause, or at least someone who is very, very far away.

If you’re just posting stuff that’s perfectly legal where you are, but still potentially embarrassing, you might use an attorney to handle these sorts of details for you. Attorneys are expensive, but that’s because their silence is worth it.

5. Location and Devices

Don’t write from home, if you can help it. If you’re going to write from home, at least don’t post things from home. Take your device to a separate network far away from where you live, do everything you can to mask your IP, and then post. Do this with different networks, preferably in places that forgo security cameras. This is the time to be most paranoid.

Purge your machine of your notes and rough drafts regularly, preferably right after you’ve posted. Secure your machine with a password only you know on the BIOS, and on the OS, and for God’s sake, use some form of Linux or UNIX-based operating system. Nothing you do will keep a dedicated person who has physical access to your device from breaking in, but you can delay them.

You might consider forgoing a laptop or phone altogether, and just have a USB drive with a Linux OS on it, and no persistent storage. That way, you can go to almost any computer, boot it up with the OS on your flash drive, write your post, and leave. No persistent storage means that your files will not be saved when you shut the computer down.

Now which OS should you use? You might try Tails.

6. Pay Your Taxes

No, really. Whether you’re exposing corruption in your own government, or just posting some artistic photos that conspicuously do not show your face, you need to live as legally and unobtrusively as you can in your day to day routine. It’s the best way to avoid unwanted attention. Remember, not even the Joker would mess with the IRS.

7. Extra Notes

VPNs

VPN services have gotten traction, recently, as more and more privacy scandals hit the airwaves. Most of them, however, are not all they’re cracked up to be. Many keep logs of exactly which traffic goes where, and so they are a weak point if anyone wants to track you down.

That said, you should probably still use one. Just pick one that doesn’t keep logs, and allows you to pay with anonymous options like cryptocurrency. Here’s a list of some of the better privacy-oriented VPNs.

Tor

Using Tor to anonymize your browsing can help, but remember that the network has been compromised before. It’s perfectly fine to use it so long as you realize it’s just one extra layer of security, and not a guarantee of safety.

That’s just what everything on this list is: a layer of security that can, with time, be peeled back. The rest is up to you.

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tex-now · 3 months ago

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A Beast has been awakened. not to argue with op i agree with them entirely i just think a lot about this topic and have a lot to say

from what i've experienced. No! they are actually teaching it. not well but they are. however. takes a deep breath.

from what i've seen it's a potent mixture of teenagers being stupid as fuck and also social media actively encouraging less and less privacy online so they can sell your information for money.

let's look at the boring mainstream stuff first. not vents, not fandoms, like. tiktok dance video type shit.

tiktok is already a HUGE invasion of privacy mostly because it tracks basically everything in your phone what you like and what you scroll past to keep you scrolling and scrolling for hours on end. since videos are the most... idk common thing on tiktok, minors usually end up showing their face for videos, and their voice as well.

and also, since tiktok is a social media app, there's a lot of hate, that's very very easy to be spread, especially because it's so so simple to push that comment button and be an asshole. and since you can respond to comments with videos, and also since teenagers are stupid idiots with a fuck ton of emotions and an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, they make a lot of bad decisions. like. say. "well actually im depressed with 5 mental disorders so" and "actually m aunt is this and that here's proof" ecetera ecetera. as you can see. horrible combination.

and that's just tiktok. im pretty sure snapchat tracks your location so people can know where you're at, on many social media apps people can see who you follow, what you like, bad decisions you've made. there is a huge lack of privacy overall. sharing personal information is more commonplace than ever. sharing your name and your location is being taken less and less seriously because social media websites want more money and data and discourage any form of personal privacy.

also. attention. stimulation. the dopamine. getting likes on a photo of yourself in a cute skirt and random guys calling you a ten outta ten, because you don't register that this random guy is a 30 year old man or maybe you just dont care because. underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. a lot of teenagers are lonely and feel misunderstood, and simply don't have enough (or don't feel like they have enough people who support them), so they turn to social media for the attention they so desperately need. whether or not the attention is good doesn't usually matter to them.

Oh and also the way they teach internet privacy is bogus because they mostly show the worst case scenario like meeting a crazy guy online irl who you thought was good and he kills you and since teenagers are stupid they don't register that something like that could happen to them. also idk if it's just me but most teenagers don't take internet safety seriously at ALL. it's like. insane how little they care. (i also believe that social media itself is why they don't care but that's a whole other thing).

okay moving onto venting. so. um. a lot of teens don't have anyone else to talk to. that's the main thing. im not gonna say it's smart but like. for a lot of kids venting online is all they have. like. maybe their parents are abusive and they don't have a therapist or maybe if they talk to someone irl it could go wrong but. like. yeagh. once again it's a stupid decision to make but. like i keep saying. bad decision makers.

and more on the vents a lot of people tend to give them supportive messages and stuff, offering a shoulder to lean on, someone to talk to, and for someone who usually feels really alone and misunderstood? yeah it makes sense to teenager who doesn't understand the full scope of reprecussions for their actions.

OH RIGHT DISCORD EXISTS. yeah that's teenagers being stupid again and they should Not be doing that. on a public server. that will make everyone uncomfortable. nonono bad traumadumping is no bueno.

also another thing i think makes it worse is that adults on the internet want nothing to do with teenagers, which is totally fine! it makes sense that you wouldn't wanna be responsible for all of that, and there could be a loooott of backlash on you if they do somwething stupid. however. you put two bad decision makers (teenagers) in a room with no mediator and what do you think happens. bad decisions.

once again it makes total sense why adults wouldn't want that, i won't try and bring someone down for curating their own space that's just unfair. however i will say that when an older figure (not even necessarily an adult just someone older) actually interacts with a younger person they tend to maintain a safe and healthy friendship because the younger person has someone to guide them or follow by their example. once again. i totally understand why people don't wanna do that. im just pointing out that when it DOES happen it has a positive effect on them. okay i think im done

WAIT AND ANOTHER THING. a lot of what they teach about internet safety is really outdated and doesn't apply well into modern internet spaces.

okay NOW im done

the comfortability kids on the internet have is crazzyyy. you should not be vent-posting on a public platform. you should not be telling people where you live, your age, your full name, on a public platform. you should not be posting all your mental/physical illnesses in your bio on a public platform. did they stop teaching internet safety or what.

#rant #I AGREE WITH OP I JUST LIKE OVEREXPLAINING THINGS TO THE BEST OF MY ABILITY #(and also am a teen so. looking at it from a teen's pov ig? idk)

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webbygraphic001 · 6 years ago

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6 Tips for Posting Content Anonymously

Yes. Yes it should. There’s no doubt that there are terrible people in the world; but anonymity is a powerful tool for good as well. Here are some of the more obvious examples:

1. Paranoia

Oh, and remember to avoid actually writing any identifying information in your actual content if you can help it. Just sayin’.

2. Avoid Big Platforms

3. Hosting

So if you’re going to be buying hosting, here’s the criteria:

You want privacy nuts.

You want a hosting company that is willing to take the (legal) fight to whoever comes looking.

Ideally, it would be good if they believed in your cause, too. That will make them fight harder to protect your data.

In general, these guys are pretty good options, and they’ve been around for some time:

IT Itch

Orange Website

Hosting by Anonymous Speech

4. Intermediaries

5. Location and Devices

Now which OS should you use? You might try Tails.

6. Pay Your Taxes

7. Extra Notes

VPNs

Tor

That’s just what everything on this list is: a layer of security that can, with time, be peeled back. The rest is up to you.

Featured image via DepositPhotos.

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succeedly · 6 years ago

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Ann Oro: Developing A Digital Citizenship Curriculum

Ann Oro on episode 314 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Ann Oro helped her diocese develop curriculum standards for digital citizenship by grade level. Ann also talks about the fifth-grade course piloted by Seton Hall in two of her schools.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Ann Oro: A Digital Citizenship Curriculum

Link to show: https://ift.tt/2k29r2k Date: May 17, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with my friend, Ann Oro.

We were just talking about how we’re pretty sure we met just about ten years ago to the day that we are recording this, in Princeton way back in 2008. (laughs)

I really followed so much of what Ann has done. She was in the classroom for many, many years.

Now she is working as Director of K-12 Instructional Technology for the 93 schools in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, and really working with their digital citizenship initiative.

So today we’re going to talk about, “What should we be teaching kids about digital citizenship?”

So Ann, I know that you’ve worked with reworking your curriculum. You’ve partnered with Seton Hall. You’ve done a lot of these things. But where do we start talking about this broad topic?

Where do we start?

Ann: Vicki, where we start is with the teachers, and really being intentional at every grade level with what’s appropriate for the students.

I work with teachers from preschool all the way up to the twelfth grade, and it really just takes a spiraling approach — meaning that when you’re in the preschool class maybe that digital citizenship just looks like, “How do you appropriately share a device with somebody else?”

Then as you work up through the years, it begins to take on different meanings, everything from asking a grownup if it’s okay to go online and if a site’s appropriate to understanding how to research that information. And finally, how to truly put your best self out if you’re doing that on the internet.

Vicki: So Ann, you think we should be intentional. You know, a lot of times, it’s kind of the shotgun approach. I’m just going to pull out my digital citizenship and just hit a bunch of stuff at once and hope I cover what I need to, but there really are things that need to be age-appropriate, aren’t there?

Ann: There absolutely are.

When I worked with the teachers in the 93 schools, we realized that we didn’t have that intentional look at the skills that students and teachers needed.

So we began by looking at the ISTE standards, which is the International Society for Technology Education. We looked at state standards, and then we talked. We spent about two years going with this approach to find the skills that we needed across the curriculum, not just digital citizenship.

We started with the ISTE Standards and state standards

Vicki: Have you shared these somewhere online?

Ann: They are online, and when you look at the Shownotes, I have a link with the resources that I’ll be talking about, and our entire technology curriculum map for K-12 is online. It’s helped give everybody focus, and it really helps us be intentional, like you said, about what it is that we want our students to be thinking and doing when they’re online.

Check out https://ift.tt/2rPcCOm for these resources

Vicki: Yeah. So, now, you recently made the news, when you partnered with Seton Hall Law of of fifth grade course. Tell us a little about that fifth grade course and what it was about.

Ann: Seton Hall Law School has a division that is the Privacy Protection Institute. It is a Catholic university.

In addition to working with public schools, they reached out to us to find out if we would be interested in piloting this program.

What it really does is it takes looking at digital citizenship away from, “Be afraid of who might meet you online,” to “How much time am I spending online?”

It’s not, “Be afraid of who might meet you online.” It’s, “How much time am I spending online?”

It really started with a focus on fifth graders because the research that they did said that that’s approximately the age when many students get their first cell phone.

They wanted to make sure that students are thinking about the implication of, “How often are you touching that cell phone?”

Also, the implications of the way that you use your phone to search is going to give you different results from the way that somebody else uses the phone to search.

It really has been very well-received by the two schools that we worked on with it. They shared an article in The Washington Post, and the leader of the programs said that they have been truly just been overwhelmed with the requests for information about this pilot program. It just points to the fact of how very topical and important it is.

Fifth grade is when most kids get their first cell phone.

Vicki: Did you get any pushback with the age of the kids? Some people think, “Oh, the kids need to be older.” But you’re right — fifth grade is when it happens. But there are a lot of folks that live in denial. How did you approach that when you got the pushback?

Ann: You know, truthfully, and maybe surprisingly, we didn’t get any pushback.

There really is a clamoring for information on the parents’ part. I’m seeing it in different ways around different schools.

A couple of the schools did a screening of “Screenagers” for the parents and attended one of those. It’s a video of them talking about the research that a doctor did on cell phones, and, again, how sticky they are.

The parents, when you talk to them afterwards, are really just interested in how much is too much. And they feel like it’s just something that’s happening to them. They don’t realize that every other parent is dealing with that across the grade levels.

Vicki: What kind of results have you seen since implementing the curriculum and this program in fifth grade with your students? Has the behavior changed? Are they talking about change? What’s happened?

Ann: Well, this is, again, it’s very, very new. We’ve only been doing it for about eight weeks in two different schools.

So the results are not in yet, but we also — through the Washington Post article, The CBS Morning Show chose to interview the school. What they found when they were interviewing the students is that the kids really clamored for the information. And the students were really becoming more intentional about how often they were touching that phone.

Vicki: Because, you know, digital health and wellness is something that you and I have talked about for years.

These devices are designed to be addictive

These devices are designed to be addictive. They’re sticky, is what marketers call it. They want it to be sticky. They want the eyeballs.

But we have to learn how to put them down. Isn’t that so hard, Ann?

Ann: It’s absolutely hard. I’ve heard you talk about it before on other shows.

It’s that concept that we’re talking about young children with young brains, and whether it’s touching that phone or whether it’s not perhaps leaving the nicest message for somebody, that kids’ brains are really developing up until their mid-twenties, depending on whether you’re talking about male or female.

A lot of what they do is really spur-of-the-moment, so it’s really a need to help the students realize that adults have a hard time with this. They have a hard time as well.

Vicki: So, Ann, as we’re finishing up, if you could challenge those working with a digital citizenship curriculum around the world with students with a thought about what it means if they do NOT have digital citizenship in their curriculum, what would you say?

Ann: Well, I would say that you’re lacking not even a future skill — I mean, this his is a skill that everybody needs.

If you’re not teaching this, then you’re setting your students up for failure

If you’re not intentionally taking care of it, you’re really setting your students up for failure when they move on into college. If they don’t go to college, when they move on to work, because you need to manage your identity.

You need to ethically interact with other people. You need to understand the rights and responsibilities of posting things online, taking control of making sure that intellectual property is cared for. And again, finally, just being very cognizant of how you’re sharing your data.

If we begin in preschool and keep spiraling through that, through twelfth grade, we’re setting students up for success in a way that other students, in previous years, really fumbled through on their own.

Begin in preschool and keep spiraling through twelfth grade

Vicki: And we’re doing what we’re supposed to do, which is educating! We’re not just saying “Hey, just figure it out yourself.”

We don’t give them geometry formulas and say, “Here’s some formulas, figure it out.”

But we hand them the phone and we don’t do that, and phones don’t come with user manuals anymore. It just kind of blows my mind.

Ann: Absolutely. In the course of looking around online, if a teacher isn’t comfortable with this, there are so many resources out there.

One of the resources that I had shared recently with some of the local teachers is a Google program that’s in their training center in Google for Education. It’s a digital citizenship and safety course for adults. Adults say, “You know what? I’m new at this. I have no idea what to do.”

It really talks about why to teach digital citizenship and safety, how you can search online in a savvy way, how you can protect yourself from phishing and scams and how you can manage your online reputation.

If so if they’re not comfortable with this, that course really gives them just the nuggets that then they can turn over to students in an age-appropriate way.

Vicki: Well, teachers and educators, we have a lot to think about with creating our digital citizenship curriculum, with things that we should be considering.

And also the challenge that, you know what? Fifth grade, is really kind of a key age to start into pretty deeply understanding of what kids need to be sharing, even if they’re a little younger than that technical age of thirteen, they are they getting phones and that does put things out there.

So I just challenge you to go to your district, go to your school, ask, “What is our digital citizenship curriculum? What are the things that each grade level should know or understand?”

Truly, I’m not sure how a school who calls itself a 21st Century School if it doesn’t have an intentional digital citizenship curriculum. It’s just part of it.

So thanks, Ann!

Ann: Thank you so much, Vicki.

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford [email protected]

Bio as submitted

Ann Oro is the Director of K12 Instructional Technology for the 93

schools in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. Ann has been leading teachers and students in the instructional use of technology to support student learning for over 15 years. Ann works to assist teachers in integrating technology into the curriculum to engage students in communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. The ability to critically review search results is an integral part of life in the 21st Century. It is equally important to communicate results in a creative manner. Ann shares collaborative projects with students and teachers across the globe. Her Monster Project, co-led with Anna Baralt, was highlighted at the 2013 International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference closing keynote. She and her students were part of a project that won the Chase Multimedia in the Classroom Award with Lisa Parisi. She has been a K-8 computer and middle school math teacher and received her M.A. in Educational Leadership, Management, and Policy from Seton Hall University.

Blog: http://www.annoroteaches.com

Twitter:@OroAnnM

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Ann Oro: Developing A Digital Citizenship Curriculum appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

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strivesy · 6 years ago