Monday, April 6, 2015

Social media in government: 30 March to 5 April

On the 18th of April, the Earth Day Network along with Google, the World Bank, several pop stars and private corporate sponsors will host #GlobalCitizenEarthDay, a musical and entertainment event designed to "inspire citizens to take action to protect our planet and its people." The event will be held throughout Washington D.C.

The United Nations first ever Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth Ahmad Alhendawi (@AhmadAlhendawi) and the Sports and the English Premier League, among others, are commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the World Programme of Action For Youth with #YouthNow. #YouthNow is designed to encourage youth to participate in government and civil society and to share images and videos demonstrating their actions online.

North America

 Canada

As noted in an earlier edition of this blog, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (@bccla) obtained the Canadian Security Intelligence Service spring 2014 risk forecasts in which social media and citizen journalism were cited as elements of concern. Apparently these elements are also used by Government authorities to spy on the activities of protestors and activists. Documents show that between May 2014 and February 2015, Canada's central Government Operation Centre obtained reports on 160+ community events, protests, and demonstrations covering everything from protests for peace to rallies for Canadian veterans. Each of these events were followed and evaluated for potential risks and, to do so, officials tracked the social media activity of related groups and participants. The Centre was established in 2004 to provide "situational awareness" and continuous monitoring to government departments about potential or real hazards on a national scale. Critics claim the Centre has strayed from its mandate by spying on Canadian citizens exercising their civil rights. “It’s a really ridiculous way to go about doing something,” Michael Vonn, policy director at the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, protested. “The notion that there might be something that could happen, an eruption if you will ... in the context of any of these demonstrations, constitutionally-protected exercises of people’s rights, are so rare that the sense that we’re going to survey the landscape for the purpose is instantly suspect.”
The revelations are being used by activists to encourage Canadians to #RejectFear and stop the new anti-terror legislation, Bill C-51, which would give the Canadian Government broader powers when spying on Canadian citizens.
Rupi Kaur (@rupikaur_), a Sikh poet living in Canada, started a global online debate when she posted an Instagram photo of herself with a stain on her trousers from menstruation. Instagram deleted the photo, and Kaur took the opportunity to point out how sexy images of women in social networks are acceptable while images of women who are overweight or who experience average body functions are taboo. Instagram has since re-posted the photo along with an apology to Kaur.


Finally, a survey led by the Canadian province of Nova Scotia reported that social media efforts to tell local students about a government initiative to stop interest on student loans has been very successful.


USA

Due to the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), estimates suggest that today an additional 16.4 million more Americans now have health insurance. Yet the Act remains the center of political controversy, and House Republican Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers asked Facebook users to share their "Obamacare horror stories" as they gear up for tax season. Ironically, she received a majority of responses sharing positive stories about the Act's new coverage.


In Indiana, the Governor is considering additional legislation to ensure that the "Religious Freedom" that he signed into law two weeks ago does not hurt Indiana business. After Governor Pence signed the bill into law, the hashtag #BoycottIndiana trended nation-wide. Users felt the law attempted to legitimize homophobia. Even Hilary Clinton joined in the debate last Monday on Twitter.
Arkansas is considering similar legislation, and the hashtag #BoycottArkansas is picking up speed in US social media.

South America

Mexico

Nicaragua

A social media campaign shut down an eight-year-old tradition in Managua's oldest mall and prompted the Nicaraguan Government to send a letter to the mall. The tradition was a swimsuit competition for girls ages 6 to 10 years old. Local activists from Quincho Barrilete Association felt the competition violated the "psychological and emotional integrity" of the girls involved. The Association ran a social media campaign that demanded the Nicaraguan Government condemn the competition. The Government did not expressly do so, but it did send a letter citing possible legal problems with the competition. The mall cancelled the event. 

Desde Asociación Quincho Barrilete hacemos el llamado al centro comercial Plaza Inter que retire los carteles donde...
Posted by Asociación Quincho Barrilete AQB on Thursday, March 26, 2015

Venezuela

The Financial Times explored how Venezuelans are using social media to find things they need - from toilet paper to powdered milk to updates on politics. Notice boards and forums allow citizens to barter for products not easily found in local stores, where inflation and shortages have made some basic necessities difficult to find. Via Twitter feeds, Venezuelans can locate medication that cannot be found in local pharmacies. According to Tendencias Digitales, one in three Venezuelans have a smart phone and at least one-sixth of the population has a Twitter account


Europe

In addition to anti-trust investigations into Google and Facebook data privacy issues, the European Union is now targeting Apple and Spotify and their streaming music plans. The EU sent questionnaires looking into the ecommerce practices to both companies. The investigation, not yet officially public, appears to be considering the fairness of online music ecommerce. 

United Kingdom

The UK Government has appointed Mike Bracken (@MTBracken) Chief Data Officer as well as Executive Director of Digital in the Cabinet Office, and head of the Government Digital Service.



Czech Republic

As noted in last week's post, U.S. troops visited the Czech Republic to demonstrate support for the NATO ally in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine. At the same time, the visit aimed to feel out Czech support for NATO, given the country's historical ties to Russia. Czech social media was largely supportive of the visit, juxtaposing photos of the U.S. soldiers smiling with locals with more austere photos of the Moscow-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. However, there was still Czech social media criticising the visit.

Turkey

“A piece of advice: If chaos breaks out, find Fethullahçıs [a derogatory term used for members of the Gülen movement] first and wipe them out. It would be a bit difficult to find them, but you could start with the one who is the most sluggish and unreliable,” the pro-Government troll account @akkulis tweeted on Thursday. The account, notorious for harassing Turkish social media users that criticise the current Turkish Administration, was shut down last week after being spammed by other Twitter users as part of a social media war between pro and con Government netizens. The (in)famous (depending on your political views in Turkey) account of another pro-Government troll, Esat Ç., was also shut down but then quickly reopened another the alternative username @esatreis__. This account, also the target of Turkish as well as international spamming, was quickly suspended as well.

A few more pro-Government troll accounts referred to an incident in an Istanbul AK party (the ruling party) office in an attempt to incite conflict between the Alevis and the Sunnis, two different Islamic groups in Turkey. Under recent hate crime legislation in Turkey, the unknown individuals behind these accounts could get jail time.  At least one of these accounts, @YesilOperasyon, is still Tweeting. @YesilOPerasyon Tweeted, “Without their [Alevis] being wiped out totally, there will be no peace in the country.”

The members of an outlawed anti-Government group in Turkey, DHKP/C, took the prosecutor in a nationally infamous case hostage last Tuesday. The prosecutor and the gunmen died in a subsequent shoot-out, and images of the prosecutor with a gun to his head have been circulated on social media. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has received the support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for instituting a media ban against the media outlets that originally posted the image of the prosecutor. These media groups were not permitted to attend the prosecutor’s funeral. 

Russia

According to The Guardian, at the price of 750 US dollars per person per month, Russia's Kremlin employs trolls. The trolls are housed in an agency in Moscow where they churn out general Internet propaganda poking fun at Western leaders and promoting Putin. Each troll must generate 20 articles a day, and trolls are fined if they are caught copying and pasting text from old articles. “They painted a picture of a work environment that was humourless and draconian, with fines for being a few minutes late or not reaching the required number of posts each day. Trolls worked in rooms of about 20 people, each controlled by three editors, who would check posts and impose fines if they found the words had been cut and pasted, or were ideologically deviant.”


Africa

Both online and offline, Kenyans are mourning the victims of the country's deadly terror attack. Islamist militants from the group Al-Shabaab attacked Garissa University College in Kenya on April 2nd, killing students and administrators as they moved through the campus. The attack killed 147 individuals, and the hashtag #147notjustanumber has been used to share images of and stories about the victims in happier times.


Middle East

Tunisia

Since the attack on tourists and Tunisians in the museum in Bardo earlier this month, global social media has joined in the trending hashtag #IWillComeToTunisia and #JesuisBardo. The income of an estimated one in every five Tunisians depends on tourism, and the hashtag is meant to promote Tunisia with tourists who might reconsider visiting the country after the Bardo terrorist attack.


Syria

The Syrian branch of al Quaeda led by al-Nusra Front took the provincial capital Idlib in Syria on the 29th of March.  Hours before the official confirmation of the city's capture by Syrian authorities, the group Tweeted its victory, "The city of Idlib has been liberated and the mujahideen have chased out the last chabbihas (militias loyal to Assad), who have fled."

ISIS fighters have also taken control of most of the largely Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk in Southern Damascus. Social media circulated the beheadings of two Palestinian fighters from the camp.

The United Arab Emirates

In the UAE last week, the Government of Dubai Media Office organised a workshop for media and corporate relations officers on the ideal use of social media. Facebook’s Politics and Government Specialist in Europe, the Middle East & Africa Elizabeth Linder joined Instagram's Political Outreach Associate Manager in Europe, the Middle East & Africa John Tass-Parker in lecturing Dubai officials on how to use social media to communicate professionally with the public. Linder and Tass-Parker pointed to the rising number of visitors and overall engagement with Dubai Government social media highlighting the following statistics:




A photo posted by John Tass-Parker (@johntassparker) on
At the Future Cities Forum, Dubai 2015, the American business magnate, politician, and philanthropist Michael Bloomberg suggested that social media has perhaps too drastically reduced the time between which a politician takes office and when his work is reviewed. "Social media is a two-way medium and you can’t always differentiate between who said what making it much more difficult to run a company or a country. Social media has changed the world — it is no longer the powers that control what is said...Social media will end up censoring content...”

Bahrain

Bahrain hosted the Bahrain International e-Government Forum 2015 last week. Workshops focused on social media, building innovation into government services, user experience, big data, project management, and more.

في اليوم الأخير من فعاليات منتدى #البحرين الدولي للحكومة الإلكترونية 2015 .. وزير الدولة لشئون المتابعة في لقاء مع قيادا...
Posted by bahrain.bh on Friday, March 20, 2015

Yemen

In Yemen, fighting continues and amidst the confusion in the city of Mukalla, the capital of the central province of Hadramawt, 300 inmates escaped from jail. One, Khalid Bartafi, a well-known member of the al-Qaeda branch in Yemen, had the time to snap and post selfies of himself exploring lavishly decorated government buildings. Bartafi snapped seflies of himself laying on expensive sofas in the governor's palace and standing on the Yemen flag.


Asia

Nepal

In Nepal, Doctor Govinda KC has been fasting for several days. He fasts to protest corruption in the Nepalese medical training system, which, according to Dr. KC and others, has allowed politics to water down the quality of medical care in the country. The social media hashtag #IamwithDrKC has gained growing support in social media and among medical practitioners. The hashtag was shared over 8 thousand times last week alone and a corresponding Facebook page, Solidarity with Prof Dr Govinda KC, has over 10 thousand likes.


India

In early March the Indian state of Maharashtra, home to India's financial capital Mumbai, passed a five-year jail sentence and a fine of 10,000 rupee ($162) for the sale or possession of beef. The hashtag #beefban has been growing on Indian social media ever since as netizens weigh in on the legislation. India is 80% Hindu, and the current nationalist Modi Government is led by a man who championed a beef ban in his own state of Gujarat. Last week the federal interior minister Rajnath Singh told religious leaders at a gathering that India will use its "might" to ban the slaughter of cows throughout India. This prompted renewed interest in the #beefban.
BJP party president Amit Shah will hold a meeting of BJP social media leaders next week to discuss how to regain momentum. BJP social media generated much positive buzz for current leader Modi during the last election. However, since Modi was elected, the social media wing of the party's outreach has lost focus, reportedly due to a lack of leadership and direction.

At the same time the party reviews its promotion, in honour of the current BJP Government's first year anniversary, the the New Media Cell of the Information & Broadcasting Ministry in consultation with the Prime Minister's Office have prepared 60 slides that supporters are releasing throughout social media. Slides sport images of the Prime Minister in various poses along with text describing how the current NDA Administration has "spellbound investors," made women feel "safer," and sped up construction, among other reported accomplishments. The goal of the campaign is to make the current Government appear more successful than the former UPA Government. Reactions so far have been mixed - from support to sarcasm (#Modisarkar).
In an example of collaborative policy-making, the railway system in the city of Chennai began a "local circle" (an online social network) called Emergency Readiness in Chennai. Over four thousand people have joined the circle since it opened on March 21st. The initiative described its aim as follows: "train accidents, natural or other disasters/emergencies in your city, this community will enable real time information broadcast and exchange thereby facilitating faster response/assistance from the local community and administration."

China

GreatFire.org, an organisation dedicated to helping Chinese citizens get around the so-called "Great Firewall" of China, and CN-NYTimes, a site that mirrors the content of the New York Times in Chinese, suffered from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. The attacks began 17 March and continued for several days. Each time the host of the sites, Github, changed its defences, the attackers did as well. “Very clearly, the Cyberspace Administration of China is behind both of the recent DDoS attacks,” Charlie Smith, co-founder of GreatFire.org, wrote in GreatFire's blog. “Hijacking the computers of millions of innocent internet users around the world is particularly striking as it illustrates the utter disregard the Chinese authorities have for international as well as even Chinese internet governance norms...The Great Firewall has switched from being a passive, inbound filter to being an active and aggressive outbound one...An earlier report about an unrelated GFW upgrade stated that 'Every machine in China has the potential be a part of a massive DDOS attack on innocent sites,' and “They have weaponized their entire population.” That was too optimistic. Now CAC has weaponized the entire Internet population.”  The CAC or an affiliate used Baidu, China's search engine (akin to Google in the West), to create the DDoS. 




Gary Pruitt, chief executive and president of The Associated Press, visited China's state-run Xinhua news agency March 27th. Pruitt toured the social media operations centre and posed for photos with Xinhua president Cai Mingzhao. Xinhua then published a story explaining that "the world's two leading news agencies [The AP and Xinhua] have agreed to strengthen co-operation in social media". The story generated a lot of buzz, including from The Associated Press, which protested that Xinhua's claim was fabricated. Ironically, during the visit, Pruitt had delivered the following statement in Hong Kong when calling for violence against journalists to be made a war crime: "Extremist organisations don't need us to get their story out - they can use social media and other means and they certainly don't want an independent media to observe them. They want to control their message from start to finish."

Chinese taxi drivers from Suifenhe attempted to commit suicide in the middle of a public shopping street in Beijing last Tuesday. The drivers were part of a number of online and offline Chinese protesting the allegedly corrupt government monopoly of taxi operators. Taxi operators can arbitrarily determine the licensing fees that taxi drivers have to pay, legislate which sort of car Chinese taxi drivers need to have, etc. As a result, many Chinese taxi drivers struggle to make ends meet. No one died as a result of the protest, according to reports, but the event did attract a lot of sympathy (and then censors) on Chinese social media.


Malaysia

Datuk Shamsul Anuar Nasarah, a Government backbencher in the Malay House or Representatives, called for the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to receive more power to control social media abuse. His demand came as a result of a story from the Malaysian Insider that alleged the Malay Conference of Rulers were against the implementation of hudud law in a Malaysian state. Three editors and two executives of The Malaysian Insider news portal were charged with sedition following the story's publication. "The action by the Malaysian Insider, in using unconfirmed reports [from social media], (is) seen like belittling the royal institution is extreme and cannot be allowed because of the fear that it can make the people to feel unsafe as the highest institution is not protected," Anuar Nasarah argued.

Posted by The Malaysian Insider on Friday, April 3, 2015
Current Malay Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) should block all ISIS video recordings of on social media to prevent youths and women in the country from being influenced by ISIS retrogressive ideology. The Government's move to block certain radical websites in the last few months has sparked some discussion about the best way to dissuade Malaysians from considering ISIS propaganda.

The former Malay Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad used his personal blog chedet.cc to criticise the current Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak. Dr Mahathir pointed to two scandals that occurred under Najib's Administration and suggested the Malay people no longer trusted Najib. The post has since gone viral. This and other social media prompted the Communication and Multimedia Ministry’s Department of Special Affairs (Jasa) Director-General Datuk Mohd Puad Zarkashi to tell reporters, “We know Tun M’s latest posting has gone viral and it is becoming too negative. Jasa will take the bull by the horns in this matter and go on ‘attack’ mode (via social media)....Governments have lost in elections before due to social media. This has happened in other countries. So, we do not want social media to be continuously used to criticise the current government.” In general, the Director-General encouraged the Malay civil service to curb anti-government social media with positive posts and stories.



The Prime Minister's Principal Secretary Rompin MP Tan Sri Jamaluddin Jarjis and five others died in a helicopter crash at the end of the week, and Malaysians used social media to express their condolences to the families of the victims.

Australia

In Australia, homeless people are turning more and more to social media and crowdfunding services to support their needs. "Social media is being used by more and more people to find solutions and address needs, from raising money to pursue creative projects, to finding a flatmate," Sarah Toohey, policy and communications manager at the Council to Homeless Persons told The Age reporter Alana Schetzer (@schetzer). "It's unsurprising that people in crisis are using social media to address their immediate needs, such as finding cheap housing or seeking donations to help get them out of debt." Seventy-seven percent of homeless people in Sydney and Melbourne have smart phones (95% have phones.) Infoxchange, an app to help those that are homeless or who are at risk to become homeless, won the Google Impact Challenge. Infoxchange seeks to streamline the access of homeless people to existing services and support.



Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea (PNG)'s National Information and Communication Technology Authority (NICTA) put forward a cybercrime policy proposal to PNG's National Executive Council for deliberation last week. If the policy is approved, PNG's Parliament will vote on whether or not to make the policy law. The policy includes rules to curb social media abuse. The rules demand that those using social media to criticise public officials be required to use their real names rather than pseudonyms. “It is not our intent to control the media but there must be some proper mechanisms in place … people have to be responsible when they are using social media to attack others. For cyber-crime, we are going to make it an offence for people to use pen-names, not using their real names and making defamatory statements. You have to be answerable for it,” NICTA Chief Executive officer Charles Punaha said recently.


For more, some reports and tools to consider this week. 

Reports

Using Baidu to steer millions of computers to launch denial of service attacks or How the Great Fire Anti Censorship Project and Amazon's Cloud Front are under Denial of Service attack. GreatFire.org published this report after they experienced a DDoS attack the 17th of March. The attack lasted several days which gave the organisation time to put together a report, a blog post and several social media posts (in English and Chinese) about the dangers of the Chinese Government using millions of unsuspecting Internet users to launch an attack against private Internet sites. 

Corrupting the Cyber-Commons: Social Media as a Tool of Autocratic Stability by University of Toronto political scientist Seva Gunitsky

Gunitsky lays out four mechanisms that link social media co-optation to autocratic resilience: 
  1. counter-mobilization 
  2. discourse framing 
  3. preference divulgence 
  4. elite coordination
He describes the use of these tactics in mixed and autocratic regimes, focussing on Russia, China, and the Middle East.

Digital Trends Report | Informe de Tendencias Digitales 2015: Toma el control de tus contenidos is a Spanish-language report looking at trends in digital marketing and communication. The report is the sixth annual look at trends by Tendencias Digitales and covers:

  • unified digital experiences (Arial is still the most popular font)
  • adaption of content to each screen size (wearable technology is here to stay...and grow)
  • content for the car
  • more personalised and geolocalised content
  • e-health (it's the new black)
  • privacy protection in the cloud
  • technology for the technophobes
  • the intersection between fashion and technology
  • Politics 2.0 and "click-activism" 

Tools

Popvox

Popvox uses real-time legislative data mixed with individual input. Information is shared with government officials that - most importantly - take citizen feedback seriously.

Grade.DC.Gov

According to the website, "this program enables you to submit comments about certain District agencies and view how District residents graded those agencies. The goal is to help you better engage with your government and help government agencies to improve the quality of their services."

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