Of Conflict Expansion, Molloy's Law, and FIR-ing Line 4 and Meanwhile in India
The Information Ecologist 60
What is this? The Information Ecologist (About page) will try to explore the dynamics of the Information Ecosystem (mainly) from the perspective of Technology Policy in India (but not always). It will look at topics and themes such as misinformation, disinformation, performative politics, professional incentives, speech and more.
Welcome to The Information Ecologist 60
Yes, I’ve addressed this image in the new about page.
In this edition:
Conflict expansion: Everything is a conflict spread across space, time and participants.
Molloy’s Law: Watch out for tightly clipped videos.
FIR-ing line 4: Article 14’s sedition tracker + this week’s entries
…Meanwhile, In India: BBC India investigation on YouTube disinformation, NWMI study on performances of masculinity in the media, outdated fact checks and bigotry that cannot be fact-checked, and the engagement that journalists/commentators get on Twitter.
I could have called this edition the h/t Mike Caulfied edition
Conflict Expansion
h/t to Mike Caulfied (I’ll be doing that again in this edition) for this one.
In the linked post, Dave Karpf relays the story of… well, I’ll let his tweets do the talking:
As you can tell, unlike the 1st tweet, these 2 tweets ‘blew up’ (Missed opportunity to plug his soundcloud). It didn’t stop there because Bret Stephens - instead of letting this die down, as per Dave Karpf, continued to extend its lifecycle by addressing it in an interview and then a column where he also (may have) compared it to the use of radios in the 1930s in Germany (I say may have because he doesn’t reference it directly, but does use a quote about bedbugs [Vivian Ho - The Guardian]).
Ok, Prateek, this is great context and all(yawn!), but why is an obscure Twitter non-feud from 2019 relevant now?
You’re right. It isn’t. Ok, I lied. It is - for the takeaways. Dave Karpf then talks about conflict expansion in the context of political science (from E.E. Schattschneider’s The Semi-Sovereign People).
In the opening pages of the book, he writes:
“the outcome of every conflict is determined by the extent to which the audience becomes involved in it.”
Later, he elaborates further:
“Political conflict is not like an intercollegiate debate in which the opponents agree in advance on the definition of the issues. As a matter of fact, the definition of the alternatives is the supreme instrument of power… He who determines what politics is about runs the country” (66).
The second point he makes is about managing the length of the conflict.
(2) Influencing the length of a political conflict is often just as important as influencing the substance of a political conflict.
The whole thing is encapsulated almost perfectly by this line:
I noted at the time that Stephens had managed an internet-first, pulling off a Streisand Effect/Godwin’s Law back-handspring. Of course the entire Internet pummeled him again after this column. Of course every news outlet published a follow-up story. Of course it gave new life to a controversy that otherwise would have ended.
I’ll admit I hadn’t thought of a lot of our interactions explicitly through the frame of conflict expansion. There are shades of it in the anatomy of an online conflict framework (See 38: Run out of Twitter for an explanation). Amplification, recruitment, creating pressure on platforms/private entities/law enforcement can all be considering exercises in conflict expansion.
Now, one thing that struck me about the Dave Karpf / Brett Stephens situation is that the actions of expanding the participants and extending the timeline were both primarily carried out by the ‘main combatants’ (even if inadvertently), if I can call them that. However, I think there’s an added dimension in our current information ecosystem - that pretty much anyone can (attempt to) expand the scope of the conflict. They may or may not succeed, of course. E.g. There were quite a few tweets that suggested Taylor Swift “could end Joe Rogan with a single tweet”[Twitter Search Results]. And while I was feeling smug about thinking of this, I looked up Schattschneider’s original chapter on the subject. He did account for this. Of course, the ease with which someone can move from audience to participant (and back) has changed.
Every fight consists of two parts (1) the few individuals who are actively engaged at the center and (2) the audience that is irresistibly attracted to the scene. The spectators are as much a part of the over-all situation as are the overt combatants. The spectators are an integral part of the situation, for, as likely as not, the audience determines the outcome of the fight. The crowd is loaded with portentousness because it is apt to be a hundred times as large as the fighting minority, and the relations of the audience and the combatants are highly unstable.
Conflict expansion is now, often, the first step (or at least an early action) - even in largely transactional interaction (I initially phrased this ‘non-political setting’ but that seemed too fuzzy. So is transactional, in my head, it looks a little less fuzzy though). Think of the number of times you’ve tweeted/posted publicly about a (perceived or actual) service deficiency (I know I have, though I consciously try to limit that now) or been at the receiving end of a snitch-tag. Because, really, who has the time to go through several layers of processes, conversations that often don’t work satisfactorily?
Molloy’s Law
Speaking of time, here’s another idea I came across courtesy of Mike Caulfied (h/t again) recently.
Here’s the critical bit:
the shorter a shocking/surprising/infuriating video clip the more likely it is to be deceptive
I’m going to use an example from the UK (not using an example from India, because I think an example that we have emotional distance from might help convey the point better - Sorry if you have strong feelings about UK politics and/or its Online Safety Act). I should also add I am relatively ignorant of the credentials (or lack thereof) of many of the actors involved.
So here’s the tweet that triggered this thought:
And, here is what the clip says:
As I said the rest of the world is watching to see what we do. Because, you know, 10 years, we’ve had 10 years of the internet kind of having i…..
When I watched this clip, I did think that’s what she meant (system 1 thinking). But then I remembered Molloy’s law and tried to find additional context.
This bit comes at the end of the ~14/15 minute interview [timestamped Youtube link].
It’s a wide ranging bill. As I said the rest of the world is watching to see what we do. Because, you know, 10 years, we’ve had 10 years of the internet kind of having its way to now. But as I’ve said, we’ve seen some of the harms that are happening particularly to young people and adults within our society and it is time now for us to do something about that, and that’s why we’re bringing this bill forward.
What are the odds that someone who happens to be the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport really thinks the internet is only 10 years old? I also think the ‘kind of having its way to now’ changes the message being conveyed in the sense of it being an unregulated space for 10 years rather than just being 10 years old. Now, you can disagree with that assertion, but it requires a different argument compared to the version that’s being dunked on.
So far, we’re still in the realm of opinion. I found search results from 2010/2011 that reference her having a blog (neither of them or flattering stories). So now, what are the odds that someone who had a blog circa 2010/11 thinks the internet is just 10 years old?
Maybe I’m being too literal with the 10 years, but the broader lesson stands.
the shorter a shocking/surprising/infuriating video clip the more likely it is to be deceptive
This is a fairly common vector for sharing misleading information in India.
Bonus: Google dork links for “clipped video” fact checks on AltNews and BoomLive
FIR-ing line 4
Before getting into this week’s FIR-ing line, it is worth pointing to Article 14’s sedition tracker, which also includes 106 instances specific to social media (screenshot included) [Kunal Purohit - Article 14].
Now, on to FIR-ing line 4. Here’s an external link to the tracker: Tracking Arrests / Cases / FIRs / Threat(s) / Detentions related to posts on Social Media (notion.site). The bits here are missing context, so I recommend clicking through to the tracker and the news stories themselves for more context.
Fittingly (given the tracker I just linked to), let’s start this off with a sedition case. Videos of an election rally where people were allegedly chanting “Pakistan Zindabad” led to sedition charges against the candidate. Other reports suggest the chants were ‘Aqib Bhai Zindabad’. This seems to be a frequently occurring accusation. See past clarifications by AltNews for chants of ‘Qazi Saab’ and ‘Haaji Saab’ ‘Zindabad’.
Journalists in J&K were called for questioning and/or arrested. Also, see this Newslaundry article that points to a tendency of not identifying them as journalists, and as ‘social media users’ instead.
Court Proceedings
A YouTuber has alleged that Google/Youtube did not comply with the 2021 IT Rules when they took down his channel. Google says it did so because the channel did not follow community guidelines. The court has issued notice to Google [LiveLaw].
The plea also seeks restoration of the two YouTube channels terminated by Google and also to pay a compensation of Rs. 20 lakhs for causing both mental and financial damage to the petitioner by violating his fundamental rights to freedom of speech and expression.
Andhra Pradesh High Court has essentially told Twitter to “follow Indian laws, or else.” Not in the context of content that harmed citizens, but in the context of content about members of the judiciary. What’s also worth noting is that submissions specifically referenced the ability to change countries.
S.V. Raju said that Twitter removes abusive content from the social media accounts of those who are Indian nationals. However, the abusive content is still not removed from those who reside in India and declare their nationality with some foreign country. There is no problem with YouTube and Facebook, this has been the case only with Twitter, he added.
‘It went viral’
A case against a BJP Leader in MP for …
According to information, BJP leader had his birthday on January 31. On the occasion, his friends allegedly indulged in celebratory firing with an air gun. Parmar also brandished a sword and cut a cake at Neem Chowk, a public place with it.
After a video went viral on social media, Tal police on February 4, 2022, registered a case against the BJP leader on the basis of a police constable’s report and initiated investigation.
A man in Karnataka (which seems to be becoming a really fun (not!) place) was arrested for dressing up as a Hindu deity during his wedding and hurting sentiments. He was arrested at the airport as he was flying out of the country.
A man who allegedly hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus during a Muslim wedding ceremony by dressing up as a Hindu deity has been arrested, Dakshina Kannada district police said.
The man, identified as Umarullal Basith was arrested from the Cochin International Airport in Kerala from where he was attempting to flee abroad, Police said.
+ More
… Meanwhile, in India
A BBC investigation about YouTube influencers, disinformation about the Indian film industry and financial incentives.
An investigation into allegations of mass conversions to Christianity in Punjab (Ilma Hasan - Logically)
A report by NWMI (Network of Women in India) studied the demonstration of masculinity in media. While the study focused mainly on television media, it did include 6 case studies on social media (pages 28-34).
Two things to note from Lata Mangeshkar passing away:
Facebook and Instagram appeared to be flagging posts as containing false information, based on a 2020 fact check. This shows at least one limitation of having a database of fact-checked items. Something once fact-checked as false can be true at some point in the future.
Then, something you cannot fact-check - hate and bigotry. The moment a photo of Shahrukh Khan at Lata Mangeshkar’s funeral appeared on my timeline (palms facing upward, angled towards his face), I feared the worst (that’s what happens when you follow this stuff too closely. To be fair, it isn’t rocket science to predict it, but it is constantly surprising that we keep finding new lows). I’m not linking to any posts/including directly, but I am including a link to a Hoaxy snapshot (worth noting that this had a lot more nodes when I looked at it on Sunday night, not quite sure what happened by Monday afternoon). But even after it was clarified that he wasn’t spitting and that what he did was a pretty standard ritual - some whataboutery turned to this being an attempt to ‘normalise Islamic culture’. I don’t have words.
Postscript: Came back to this after scheduling the post. The ever-so-bleak-and-constantly-receding-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things silver lining from this episode, where hate was projected at ~200M indirectly through one man (sigh!), is that people showed a growing recognition of the concept of algorithmic reward in the context of rage-farming (see Nidhi Razdan’s tweet. Note that these examples are also harder to find precisely because they don’t quote the original tweet and are therefore not linked to it. That said, it was still quote tweeted a decent amount. But not like a certain anchor was in 2020 (see Nathalie Van Raemdonck’s tweet).
Don’t quote tweet that hateful man and amplify his bigotry. Instead report the tweet and hopefully @Twitter will act
@prateekwaghre previously showed how quote tweets amplify hate@katestarbird @2020Partnership Thank you @katestarbird. This is very informative. In your years of experience has there ever been any clarity from platforms on how much of a role quote tweets (the negative kind) play in amplification? I ask because of https://t.co/rXwsAZTn6G
Prateek Waghre @prateekwaghrePerhaps one day, we can extend this understanding to rethink our practice of uncritically quoting what people say, especially politicians, and using them as quotes/headlines/tweets stripped off context/clarification.
Also, see this study on the engagement journalists/commentators receive on Twitter. Takeaways: Hindi, pro-government, aggressive tones seem to be better for engagement.
