stories filed under: "racism"

Content Moderation Case Study: Talking About Racism On Social Media (2019)

from the what's-racist,-and-what's-a-discussion dept

Fri, Jul 24th 2020 3:42pm — Copia Institute

Summary: With social media platforms taking a more aggressive stance regarding racist, abusive, and hateful language on their platforms, there are times when those efforts end up blocking conversations about race and racism itself. The likelihood of getting an account suspended or taken down has been referred to as “Facebooking while Black.”

As covered in USA Today, the situations can become complicated quickly:

A post from poet Shawn William caught [Carolyn Wysinger’s] eye. "On the day that Trayvon would've turned 24, Liam Neeson is going on national talk shows trying to convince the world that he is not a racist." While promoting a revenge movie, the Hollywood actor confessed that decades earlier, after a female friend told him she'd been raped by a black man she could not identify, he'd roamed the streets hunting for black men to harm.

For Wysinger, an activist whose podcast The C-Dubb Show frequently explores anti-black racism, the troubling episode recalled the nation's dark history of lynching, when charges of sexual violence against a white woman were used to justify mob murders of black men.

"White men are so fragile," she fired off, sharing William's post with her friends, "and the mere presence of a black person challenges every single thing in them."

This post was quickly deleted by Facebook, claiming that it violated the site’s “hate speech” policies. She was also warned that attempting to repost the content would lead to her being banned for 72 hours.

Facebook’s rules are that an attack on a “protected characteristic” -- such as race, gender, sexuality or religion -- violates its “hate speech” policies. In this case, the removal was because Wysinger’s post was speech that targeted a group based on a “protected characteristic” (in this case “white men”) and thus it was flagged for deletion.

Questions to consider:

How should a site handle sensitive conversations regarding discrimination?
If a policy defines “protected characteristics,” are all groups defined by one of those characteristics to be treated equally?
- If so, is that in itself a form of disparate treatment for historically oppressed groups?
- If not, does that risk accusations of bias?
Is there any way to take wider context into account during human or technological reviews?
Should the race/gender/sexuality/religion of the speaker be taken into account? What about the target of the speech?
Is there a way to determine if a comment is “speaking up” to power or “speaking down” from a position of power?

Resolution: In the case described above, Wysinger chose not to risk losing her Facebook access for any amount of time, and simply chose not to repost the statement about Liam Neeson. Facebook, for its part, has continued to adapt and adjust is policy. It streamlined its “appeals” process to try to deal with many of these kinds of cases, and has announced (after two years of planning and discussion) the first members of its Facebook Oversight Board, an independent body that will be tasked with reviewing particularly tricky content takedown cases on the platform.

Filed Under: case study, content moderation, content moderation case study, racism

56 Comments

Is Data Privacy A Privilege? The Racial Implications Of Technology Based Tools In Government

Privacy

from the algorithmic-bias-and-privacy dept

Wed, Jun 24th 2020 12:30pm — Chynna Foucek

While we often read about (and most likely experience ourselves) public outrage regarding personal data pulled from websites like Facebook, the news often fails to highlight the staggering amounts of personal data collected by our governments, both directly and indirectly. Outside of the traditional Fourth Amendment protocols for constitutional searches and seizures, personally identifiable information (PII) – information that can be used to potentially identify an individual – is collected when we submit tax returns, apply for government assistance programs or interact with federal and government social media accounts.

Technology has not only expanded governments’ capability to collect and hold onto our data, but has also transformed the ways in which that data is used. It is not uncommon now for entities to collect metadata or data that summarizes and provides information about other data (for example, the author of a file or the date and time the file was last edited). The NSA, for instance, collected metadata from over 500 million calls detailing records during 2017, much of which it did not have the legal authority to collect. Governments now even purchase huge amounts of data from third party tech companies.

The implementation of artificial intelligence tools throughout the government sector has influenced what these entities do with our data. Governments aiming to “reduce the cost of core governance functions, improve the quality of decisions, and unleash the power of administrative data the name” have implemented tools like artificial intelligence decision making in both criminal and civil contexts. Algorithms can be effective tools in remedying government inefficiencies, and idealistic champions believe that artificial intelligence can eliminate human and subjective emotions to obtain a logical and “fairer” outcome. Data collected by governments plays a role in developing these tools. Individual data is taken and aggregated into data sets which are then used for algorithmic decision making.

With all this data, what steps do governments take to protect the information they collect from their citizens?

Currently, there are real and valid concerns that governments fail to take the adequate steps necessary to protect and secure data. Take, for instance, the ever-increasing number of data breaches in densely populated cities like New York and Atlanta. In 2018, the city of Atlanta was subjected to a major ransomware attack by an Iranian based group of hackers that shut down major city systems and led to outages that were related to “applications customers use to pay bills or access court related information,” (as per Richard Cox, the city's Chief of Operations at the time). Notably, the city had been heavily criticized for its subpar IT and cybersecurity infrastructure and apathetic attitude towards fixing any vulnerabilities in the city.

While the city claimed there was little evidence that the attack had compromised any of its citizens’ data, this assertion seems unrealistic given the span and length of the attack and the number of systems that were compromised.

Race, Algorithms and Data Privacy

As a current law student, I have given much thought over the last few years to the role of technology as the “great equalizer.” For decades, technology proponents have advocated for increased use in the government sector by highlighting its ability to level the playing field and provide opportunities for success to all, regardless of race, gender or economic income.

However, having gained familiarity with the legal and criminal justice systems, I have begun to see that human racial and gender biases, coupled with government officials’ failure to understand or question technological tools like artificial intelligence, often leads to inequitable results. Further, the allocation of governments funds for technological tools often go to police and prosecution rather than defense and protection of vulnerable communities.

There is a real threat that algorithms do not achieve the intended goals of objectivity and fairness, but further perpetuate the inequalities and biases that already exist within our societies. Artificial intelligence has enabled governments to cultivate “big data” and thus, have added another tool to their arsenals of surveillance technology. “Advances in computational science have created the ability to capture, collect, and combine everyone's digital trails and analyze them in ever finer detail." Through the weaponization of big data, governments can even more easily identify, control, and oppress marginalized groups of people within a society.

As our country currently addresses the decades of systematic racism inherent in our political and societal systems, privacy must be included in the conversation and reform. I believe that data privacy today is regarded as a privilege rather than a right, and this privilege is often reserved for white, middle- and upper class citizens. The complex, confusing and lengthy nature of privacy policies not only requires some familiarity with data privacy and what the government and companies do with data, but also the time, energy and resources to read through the entirety of the document. If the receipt of vital benefits was contingent on my acceptance of a government website privacy policy, I have no doubt that I would accept the terms regardless of how
unfavorable they were to me.

The very notion of the right to privacy in the United States is derived, historically, from white, male, and upper class values. In 1890, Samuel D. Warren and Louis Brandeis (future Supreme Court Justice) penned their famous and often quoted “The Right to Privacy” in the Harvard Law Review. The article was, in fact, a response to the discomfort that accompanied their high-society lives, as the invention of the camera now meant that their parties were captured and displayed prominently in newspapers and tabloid publications.

These men did not intend to include the general population when creating this new right to privacy, but instead aimed to safeguard their own interests. They were not looking to protect the privacy of the most vulnerable populations, but to make sure that the local tabloid didn’t publish any drunk or incriminating photos from the prior night’s party. Even the traditional conception of privacy, which employs physical space and the home to illustrate the public verses private divide, is a biased and elitist concept. Should someone, then, lose their right to privacy if they do not have a home themselves?

In the criminal justice system, how do we know that courts and governments are devoting an adequate amount of resources to secure records and the data of individuals in prison or court? Large portions of budgets are spent on prosecutorial tools, and it seems as though racial biases prevent governments from devoting monetary resources to protect minorities’ data and privacy as they move through the criminal justice system. Governments do not reveal much as to whether they notify prisoners and defendants if data is compromised, so it is clear that these systems must be scrutinized moving forward.

Moving Forward

Moving forward, how do we address race and inequity issues surrounding data privacy and hold our governments accountable? Personally, I think we need to start with better data privacy legislation. Currently, California is the only state with a tangible data privacy law, which should be expanded to the federal level. Limits must be placed on how long governments can hold onto data, what can be done with the data collected, and proper protocols for data destruction must be established. I believe there is a dire need for better cybersecurity legislation that places the burden on government entities to develop cybersecurity protections that exceed the bare minimum.

The few pieces of cybersecurity legislation that do exist tend to be reactive more than proactive, and often utilize ambiguous terms like “reasonable cybersecurity features,” which ultimately give more power to companies and entities to say they did what was reasonable for the situation at the time. Additionally, judges and lawyers need to be held accountable for data protection as well. Because technology is so deeply integrated into the court systems and the entirety of law itself, there should be an ethical and professional code of conduct-based requirement that holds judges and supporting court staff to a standard in which they must actively work to protect data.

We also need to implement better education in schools regarding the importance of data privacy and what governments and companies do with our personal identifying information. Countries throughout the European Union have developed robust programs in schools that focus on teaching the importance of digital privacy and skills. Programs like Poland’s “Your data – your concern” enable the youth to understand and take ownership of their privacy rather than blatantly click “Accept” on a privacy policy. To address economic and racial inequalities, non-profit groups should also aim to integrate these courses into public programming, adult education curricula, and prison educational programs.

Finally, and most importantly, we need to place limits on and reconsider what technological tools both local and federal governments are using and the racial biases inherent in these tools. Because technology can be weaponized to continue oppression, I question whether governments should implement these solutions prior to addressing the underlying systematic racism that already exists within our societies. It is important to remember the algorithms and the outcomes generated – especially in the context of government – reflect existing biases and prejudices in our society. It is clear that governments are not yet willing to accept responsibility for the biases present in the algorithm or strive to protect data regardless of race, gender and income level.

For example, a study conducted on an algorithm used to determine a criminal defendant’s likelihood of reoffending had an 80% error rate in predictions of violent recidivism. Problematically, these errors impacted minority groups significantly more than they did white defendants. The study determined that the algorithm incorrectly determined blacks as re-offenders at almost double the rate that it incorrectly identified white defendants. Because recidivism rates are considered in sentencing and bail determinations, these algorithms disastrously impact minorities’ livelihoods by subjecting them to harsher punishment and more time in prison; individuals lose valuable time and are unable to work or support their families and communities. Until women and minorities have more of a presence in both the government and programming, and can use their diverse perspectives to ensure that algorithms do not contain biases, these technology tools will continue to oppress.

We must now ask if we have succeeded in creating an environment in which these tools can be implemented to help more than cause harm. While I think these tools currently cause more harm, I am hopeful that as our country begins to address and remedy the underlying systemic racism that exists, we can create government systems that can safely implement tools in ways that benefit all.

Chynna Foucek is a rising third year student at Brooklyn Law School, where she focuses on Intellectual Property, Cybersecurity and Data Privacy law.

Filed Under: ai, algorithm bias, algorithms, data privacy, privacy, racism

4 Comments

Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible: Facebook Kicks Off Anti-Racist Skinheads/Musicians While Trying To Block Racists

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the brings-me-back dept

Thu, Jun 18th 2020 12:11pm — Mike Masnick

So, this one brings me back. A few decades ago, I spent a lot of time hanging out with skinheads. And back then, it was all too common to have to go through the standard explanation: no skinheads are not all racists. Indeed, original skinheads in the 1960s were working class Brits with an affinity for Jamaican music, immortalized in songs like Skinhead Girl and Skinhead Moonstomp by the Jamaican band Symarip -- and that meant that many of the original skinheads were also immigrants to the UK from the Caribbean. It was only in the 1980s that a group of newer skinheads started associating with various fascist movements in the UK. Of course, as with so many things, the media picked up those neo-nazi skinheads, and ignored the roots of the movement. In response to the media suddenly believing that all skinheads were nazis, many started associating with the "SHARP" movement (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice -- though also a play on the fact that skinheads like to dress "sharp"). There's a lot more to all of this and a lot of sub-cultures and sub-groupings, and there are plenty of skinheads who are neither racists nor officially "SHARPs" but I'd kinda thought I'd left all that debate and culture behind many years ago, only to have it crashing back into my consciousness last week with the news that Facebook had kicked off a ton of anti-racist, and SHARP skinhead accounts, believing that they were racists.

Hundreds of anti-racist skinheads are reporting that Facebook has purged their accounts for allegedly violating its community standards. This week, members of ska, reggae, and SHARP (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice) communities that oppose white supremacy are accusing the platform of wrongfully targeting them. Many believe that Facebook has mistakenly conflated their subculture with neo-Nazi groups because of the term “skinhead.”

The suspensions occurred days after Facebook removed 200 accounts connected to white supremacist groups...

Somewhat incredibly, this included the personal account of Neville Staple, the Jamaican born frontman of the famed UK ska band, The Specials (the band who literally launched the 2 Tone label and musical movement, which was named, in part, because most of the bands associated with it had both black and white members).

Of course, all of this seems like just another example of the Masnick Impossibility Theory at work. If you don't know much about the subculture, you might actually believe that skinheads are, by definition, racist. It's a common enough belief. It's not at all historically accurate, but you have to actually understand the culture and the history and the context to know that. If you've just heard somewhere -- as many have -- that skinheads are racists, then it's easy to think that any "skinhead" page or account should be shut down.

And, of course, some of the removals (like Staple) were particularly absurd if anyone had bothered to look at the pages in question:

The account of Clara Byrne, singer of Brighton hard reggae band Dakka Skanks and a musician of color, was also temporarily disabled. Byrne’s most recent Facebook posts support Black Lives Matter and the uprisings against police brutality.

But, of course, part of the issue is that this is not Facebook employees going one-by-one and examining each and every page. That's not how these big automated sweeps work. And, that's just part of the issue with the scale here. It simply can't manually review every page like that, because while you can figure out why each of these is absurd, or why there's confusion, for every bit of time you spend doing that, you have thousands of trolls, bots, and actual racists signing up and creating mayhem as well.

Inevitably, mistakes are made.

To Facebook's credit, soon after this started getting attention, the company reinstated all of those accounts, and there was some other confusion about all of this (for one account, they apparently demanded the user upload ID to prove who they were). Obviously, Facebook can and should continue to improve its systems to avoid situations like this (though, most of the people impacted in the article took it in a good-natured way). But it's yet another example of the impossibility of moderating so much content at scale without inevitable mistakes.

Filed Under: content moderation, content moderation at scale, impossibility theorem, neville staple, racism, sharps, skinheads
Companies: facebook

30 Comments

Why Using Cellphones To Trace The Pandemic Won't Save Black Lives

Privacy

from the connecting-the-pandemic-to-the-protests dept

Wed, Jun 17th 2020 12:00pm — Malkia Devich Cyril

Caught between COVID-19 and cop violence, and now risking their health to protest these conditions, Black communities need a comprehensive anti-racist public health response to this growing pandemic. Instead, some U.S. states are investing in apps to contain the virus.

George Floyd died, unable to breathe, with Officer Derek Chauvin’s knee pressed into his neck for almost nine minutes. According to the full autopsy report released by the victim’s family, Mr. Floyd had also tested positive for COVID-19 weeks prior to his death. While Mr. Floyd was asymptomatic and the virus was not a contributing factor in his death, thousands of Black people throughout the United States have died, breathless—collateral damage in a double pandemic that has taken too many Black lives. COVID-19 has sickened at least 1.9 million people and killed more than 100,000 in the U.S., the highest death toll across the globe. Black people are disproportionately represented in both the number of infections and the number of deaths.

To contain the viral pandemic, cities and counties across the U.S. are adopting something called Technology Assisted Contact Tracing (TACT), using cell phone apps as a means of identifying people diagnosed with COVID-19, notifying people who have been in contact with them of possible exposure to the disease, and advising them of protocols to limit the spread of the virus.

I talked to a Bay Area nurse who conducts coronavirus contact tracing, and she described how understaffed, committed teams of medical professionals and others are working tirelessly to find sick and potentially sick people. As the President quickens the pace of “re-opening” the economy, public health experts have insisted that dramatically increasing U.S. capacity to implement contact tracing is a necessary step. But the costs and dangers, especially to Black and other underserved communities, may be greater than the benefits.

In many cities, massive manual contact tracing efforts are underway, engaging nurses and other medical staff, as well as laypeople, in making thousands of phone calls to identify, notify and educate people who may be infected with COVID-19. Contact tracing is considered a basic practice in epidemiology. Digital contact tracing is intended to accent these sorely needed existing manual contact tracing efforts, making them less expensive, and more effective and efficient.

But digital contact tracing or ‘TACT’ is not just a neutral scientific project. There are some real limitations to the technology that render it potentially ineffective and possibly harmful in Black, Latino and Native communities, and amongst low-income or homeless people. Some experts say at least 60% of a nation’s population must participate as app users for it to work. But, those hardest hit by the virus may also be least likely to have the access and means to use the apps.

What Exactly is Digital Contact Tracing?

Here’s the simple version for non-techies like me: Proximity tracing apps are a way to figure out if two people were in the same location at the same time. Proximity tracing involves using bluetooth detection, GPS tracking, or a hybrid of the two. This proximity detection capacity is powered by either the bluetooth detection framework that has recently been added to smartphones by both Google and Apple, or by existing GPS tracking.

Cell phone users download an app with a GPS-based location logger or proximity detection capacity. When a person is confirmed by a medical professional as having COVID-19, a medical provider certifies the diagnosis, and the infected person’s GPS data or proximity tokens are uploaded to the app’s server. People could indicate on the app, provided by public health officials with an opt-in by the user, that they’d been infected. Those who’d been nearby would receive a notification so that they could self-quarantine or, ideally, seek a diagnosis.

On its face, this kind of cell phone based proximity detection and notification system sounds really good, simple and necessary. As a person who grew up watching my mother suffer and die from sickle cell anemia and then my wife and friends suffer and die from cancer, I know what it is to be desperate for a way to avoid the tragedy of dying in a hospital alone. But, as global climate change and inequality exacerbates existing societal fractures, we have to decide as a nation whether our use of digital technologies will expand government surveillance, as digital contact tracing apps do, or shrink it.

App Inequity

A Pew Research Center survey from 2019 found that Blacks and Latinos are more likely than whites to use a smartphone for a broader range of activities, but these communities and lower-income smartphone users are about twice as likely as whites to have canceled or cut off service because of the expense. That same study found that some 19 percent of U.S. adults do not have smartphones—a proportion that rises to 29 percent among those in rural areas, 34 percent among people who did not graduate from high school, and a staggering 47 percent among people over the age of 65.

These proximity notification apps work on smartphones and could use a tremendous amount of someone’s data plan. Signal strength and availability of Internet WiFi is another major challenge, since these apps could require a fairly robust data plan. Using a large amount of data also often requires Internet access, yet more than 21 million Americans don’t have access to high speed Internet.

What’s more, the apps’ ability to recognize proximity means that the app can tell if two people are close to each other, but cannot target with enough specificity to tell whether or not there is a wall, or PPE between them. This can lead to false positives, especially in densely populated areas. In addition, though one person may have the app, if the person beside them does not, the app can produce false negatives by failing to identify a potentially infected person. In both of these scenarios of dense population and sporadic app availability, we can imagine how Black communities would be disproportionately impacted by the technology’s limitations.

Inequity = Ineffectiveness

These equity barriers mean the apps just won’t be as effective as they are designed to be.

For these apps to work, there are multiple decision points that create a barrier to use. A person has to download the app. Then they must disclose medical information. Finally, they must choose to quarantine and follow public health recommendations provided by the app or a follow up health provider.

At each point, equity challenges -- from the disproportionate representation of Black and Latino workers performing front line essential services to crowded and substandard housing -- lessen the likelihood of Blacks and Latinos voluntarily using and therefore gaining benefit from proximity notification apps.

Suspicion of public health workers and the medical establishment as a whole may be one of the most significant barriers to Black and Latino participation in digital contact tracing, despite the disparate impact of COVID-19 on these communities.

African Americans represent about a third of deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, and 30% of known coronavirus cases, though they comprise only 13% of the U.S. population. Black people are hospitalized for coronavirus complications at three times the rate of white people. In 21 states, Blacks are dying at substantially higher rates. This trend of disproportionate Black dying, while associated with a new virus, has a long and painful history. Since the trans-Atlantic slave trade began in the 1600’s, Black people in the Americas have been deprived of quality food, housing, health care, clothing and all the things a person needs to remain healthy.

At the same time Black people live under extraordinarily stressful conditions, from recurring police violence and over-policed communities, mass incarceration, employment and educational discrimination and so much more. As a result, Black bodies have become more susceptible to conditions like heart disease and diabetes. Black people are more likely to die from all types of cancers.

Despite evidence that generational deprivation caused by systemic white supremacy has had a powerful hand in creating these racial health disparities, Black people are consistently blamed for their poor health outcomes and for their disparate rate of death from coronavirus.

From U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams’ recent remarks in the press that encouraged Black people to ‘take better care of themselves” to prevent COVID-19 deaths—to President Trump’s recent suggestion that protests for Black civil rights caused a spike in coronavirus rates, the White House is pointing fingers at Black communities that should be pointed at America’s broken health care system. Latinos also comprise a greater share of confirmed cases than their share of the population, and share similar health disparities. The Navajo Nation has been hit especially hard.

Black people are not only blamed for the durability of this virus, they are also punished for it. Ninety percent of people arrested in encounters related to social distancing in New York City have been Black or Latino, and some of the arrests captured on video have been extremely brutal. Arrests are conducted by officers without adequate personal protective equipment, and those arrested on a charge of failing to adequately social distance end up in jails where social distancing is impossible. Though it’s clear we can’t police our way out of this pandemic, it seems some cities are committed to continuing to use excessive, brutal and discriminatory policing to enforce social codes.

Blamed for the underlying conditions that make Black people more likely to die from COVID-19, criminalized, left behind by government relief funds and steeped in a history of medical bias and government misuse of personal data—Black communities, alongside Latinos, Native American, lower-income, undocumented and some Asian communities have little reason to trust government contact tracing apps.

The technology only works if federal and state dollars are subsequently invested in impacted communities, appropriate interventions in place. For example, in New Orleans, health officials identified equity barriers in their drive-through testing strategy for the coronavirus. Census tract data revealed hot spots for the virus were located in predominantly low-income African-American neighborhoods where many residents lacked cars. So they changed their strategy and sent mobile testing vans into the community, instead of having the community come to them. But these interventions are few and far between.

Perhaps the biggest effectiveness barrier for Black and other underserved communities is inequity in testing. Testing generates data, and Technology Assisted Contact Tracing apps rely on robust data generated by robust testing. So what happens when Black communities are denied robust testing due to structural inequalities and implicit bias in the medical system?

In April 2020, 30-year-old Rana Zoe Mungin, a beloved Black teacher in Brooklyn New York, died from COVID-19 after twice being denied testing. Under pressure from civil rights groups and public health advocates, cities and states have begun to collect race-based data on who is getting sick and dying from this virus. Right now, race or ethnicity is known in about half of all cases and in 90 percent of deaths. Without adequate testing, there is insufficient data for the apps to track contacts. Without adequate testing, appropriate protection and accessible health care, contact tracing apps do not ease the burden or hardworking public health officials. In fact, under-utilized contact tracing apps may misdirect health care workers and make the job of containing the virus even harder.

Privacy Challenges

While early exposure notification using proximity detection apps could be minimally useful, its potential usefulness does not outweigh another very real threat: spying. These apps are likely to be created by developers who have limited experience with managing privacy concerns and sensitive medical data, yet the privacy parameters will be left to each app developer. An inexperienced app developer with limited privacy and contract tracing background could cause real harm. Though Google and Apple have gone a long way toward managing privacy concerns, not every state is going to use the Google/Apple API.

In the rush to a technological fix, cities and states may overlook what’s needed to protect highly sensitive data being collected and placed in centralized, government run databases. This data needs to be locked down with clear use agreements when governments are entering into contracts with private companies, including app developers and database developers like Salesforce. A patchwork state to state, city to city, approach with no federal privacy standards or use agreements could be a significant threat to user data. It can be really hard to genuinely protect privacy, especially if the political will to protect all users equally isn’t there.

For these reasons alone, Black people have good reason to be skeptical of contact tracing apps. But history provides an even better reason. After the terrorist attacks on 9-11, Americans were told that the Patriot Act, a new Department of Homeland Security, and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were critically necessary. All three came into being in the direct aftermath of those attacks and were deployed domestically during the U.S invasion of Afghanistan. The Patriot Act installed new powers that were supposed to target terrorism, but have since been used to fuel racial profiling, while DHS has fueled a burgeoning system of digital surveillance and multi-state cooperation through the use of fusion centers. We’ve already experienced the way expanded surveillance powers for one purpose can be transferred and used for another.

Right now, the Pandemic is already providing a distraction to dramatic expansions of existing surveillance powers. The US Senate recently failed in its attempt to limit law enforcement agencies’ access to web browsing data without a warrant, which reinforced the government’s expansive surveillance powers. Though it’s clear that facial recognition is not the solution to what is now a public health crisis, controversial tech company Clearview says it's in talks with federal and state agencies to track COVID19 using facial recognition. Face-scanning systems are already in use or under consideration in the coronavirus response. Tampa General Hospital in Florida recently implemented a screening system that includes thermal-scanning face cameras that look for fevers, sweating, and discoloration. Texas-based Athena Security has been pitching a similar product to grocery stores, hospitals, and voting locations.

The COVID19 Consumer Data Protection Act would require companies to get consent from individuals to collect health information, device information, geolocation, or proximity information. It would also make companies disclose why their data is being collected, how it will be handled, who it will be transferred to, and how long it will be retained. But advocates are concerned it doesn’t go far enough. It certainly would not protect Black app users from the potential pivot from government sponsored pandemic surveillance to police surveillance.

Proximity Apps Must Be Coupled With Comprehensive Public Health Strategies

It’s clear that inequality, not ignorance, is fueling COVID-19 infection rates in America. When racial disparities are coded as biological medical problems caused by the patient, rather than political problems caused by long-standing structural inequalities, it creates a wall of mistrust between patients and providers that is already limiting the success of manual contact tracers. Louisiana has invested millions of dollars, but fewer than half are answering the phone. The same barriers will exist when trying to get people to use an app that wants to track your location and share your medical information.

To contain the virus in Black communities, contact tracing apps have a role to play, but it can never function successfully as a primary solution. It’s clear some states will build their own apps and if they do, they should follow these principles for Technology Assisted Contact Tracing. But instead, cities should strengthen and invest in the human infrastructure for contact tracing and public health that is rooted in relationships and trust. Build small, nurse-led medical teams, and invest in technological solutions that can help bring medicine into people’s homes, reach people on the street, speak to those for whom English is not their first language. Connect people to testing and real services in real time. And if they end up sick, alone and dying -- advocate for them in hospitals.

Over-reliance on technology cannot solve massive social problems, but it can create them. An app cannot bridge structural inequalities baked into American healthcare. The effectiveness of the proposed contact tracing apps seem limited comparative to potential negative impacts. If we skip over these disparities, if we pour resources and direct investment toward technical fixes without also repairing what has prevented Black patients from getting the best medical care available, it will be a huge, ineffective and expensive distraction. This may be at least one of the reasons contact tracing apps haven’t really taken off in the U.S. thus far. Some states have invested in the apps, but most still do not and many have no immediate plans to adopt one.

Contact tracing or proximity apps could help limit the spread of the virus among some populations, but without a comprehensive public health agenda, it won’t be enough to save Black lives.

Malkia Devich Cyril is an award winning activist, writer and public speaker on issues of digital rights, narrative power, Black liberation and collective grief; as well as the lead founder and former Executive Director of MediaJustice — a national hub boldly advancing racial justice, rights and dignity in a digital age. After more than 20 years of leadership, Devich-Cyril now serves as a Senior Fellow at Media Justice.

Filed Under: black lives matter, contact tracing, covid-19, george floyd, inequality, pandemic, privacy, racism

12 Comments

Let's Stop Pretending Peaceful Demonstrations Will Fix The System. 'Peace Officers' Don't Give A Shit About Peace.

Say That Again

from the [types-self-out-of-any-government-employment-ever] dept

Wed, Jun 3rd 2020 9:40am — Tim Cushing

First off, I would like to thank Mike Masnick and Techdirt for publishing my post on the George Floyd killing and the (in my eyes) justifiable destruction of police property as an answer to years of injustice and "bad apple" excuses. Very few sites would have published such a post. Most would have rejected it after reading the title.

I also appreciate the commenters who weighed in, including those who disagreed with me. It was a strong stance for me to take and I expected to be drowned in criticism. That I wasn't buried by critics perhaps demonstrates my points were well-made. Or it may just indicate the general public is sick and tired of cop bullshit -- bullshit they far too often walk away from, thanks to generous union contracts, the almost-obligatory judicial application of qualified immunity, or the continued sheltering of police officers from personal responsibility by legislators.

But I did want to respond to one comment in the thread in particular. This comment suggested I was off-base and that peaceful protests are productive and have resulted in systemic changes. Despite the evidence I had laid down that being peaceful and seeking change through acceptable routes has been a net loss over the last 50+ years, a commenter suggested otherwise.

This is the central argument of the comment submitted by one of our many anonymous commenters. (Just a reminder, we love anonymous commenters and would never demand you give us all your vitals in exchange for your ability to comment on articles. We also allow you to turn ads off if you wish with no financial obligation. That being said, there are multiple ways to support this fiercely independent site, so click thru if you'd like to help. Thanks!)

In contrast to a number of the opinions I have been reading here and on other sites, I am not okay with burning everything down and I do not think that rioting and looting is going to result in any lasting change for the better. Taxpayer dollars were used to build that police station and purchase the police vehicles that got destroyed. A person's life savings might be invested in that house or business that was set on fire. A corporate building (such as Target) might not be replaced in the future. (Black neighborhoods have been complaining of corporate chains avoiding them due to the higher costs incurred.) Yes, insurance might pay to replace the lost things. Yes, corporations and people might rebuild. However, what of the turmoil and hardship that occurs in ALL of the surrounding lives that have to find ways to cope without the services or shelter they previously had?

Rioting seems to only divide us into those who follow the rules of civil society and those who do not. I have read multiple accounts of people who came to peacefully protest, but LEFT when they realized things were going turn violent. They came to PROTEST violence, not PARTICIPATE in it. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi showed us that big changes CAN be be achieved without using violence. The PBS series "Eyes on the Prize" shows how the system in place tried multiple tactics and violence to derail the civil rights movement. Video clips of police violence were aired on TV. But the protesters did not fight back. They did not join in the violence. As those who wanted to maintain the status quo were forced to use stronger tactics against the protesters, the more it became obvious to the other members of society that something was seriously wrong and needed to be changed. The injustice was clear. Those who wanted justice then JOINED the protesters until those in power couldn't ignore the injustice any further. Remember, our political representatives ONLY rule with the consent of the governed. When the governed rise up in unified agreement, change DOES happen.

I appreciate the point being made. Nonviolent protest can result in positive changes. Unfortunately, given the history of this nation and its law enforcement agencies, one cannot apply it to the current situation. The argument is coherent. But the effectiveness of holding back and operating within the confines of numerous social contracts has yet to prove a net gain for minorities -- especially black Americans, who spent years as slaves and years as subhumans following the abolition of slavery.

Here's Trevor Noah explaining eloquently why this flashpoint isn't an overreaction to a single data point, but rather the culmination of hundreds of years of history.

That's why this commenter's argument doesn't work. And here's why the current situation -- as horrendous and shocking as it seems -- is more likely to move the dial on moving cops back into their rightful position as protectors and servants, rather than self-appointed warlords overseeing a mostly imaginary domestic conflict.

Several commenters said I was advocating for violence and destruction. They're only half-right.

I don't want looting and senseless violence either. In fact, I want no violence. I do not want police officers killed or injured. But if anyone should be targeted for destruction, it should be the entities that have perpetrated this violence upon certain Americans for years. Let them experience what it is to live as a black person in America -- one now "led" by someone who openly calls for violence against those exercising their First Amendment rights (protesters, journalists).

I have already pointed out how peaceful protests have failed to effect change. These acts -- the burning of precincts and police vehicles -- may not either, but it will make the point far more effectively than hanging back and being compliant. I don't want to see business owners victimized by opportunists but I think a few burning cop cars is a small price to pay for equality and serious police reform.

The law enforcement agencies of America have earned every bit of the hatred they're now feeling. But during these protests all things are equal. There are no courts, no unions, no "tough-on-crime" legislators standing between cops and the destruction of their property. Sucks for them. And when the shit goes down, they flee their posts and give up any appearance of giving a damn about serving or protecting.

No one forced cops to behave this way. They took it upon themselves to act as warriors while performing a job that asks them to act as society's protector. They talk a lot about the "thin blue line" between us and chaos, and then act as agents of chaos as soon as an opportunity presents itself. De-escalation tactics are an anomaly. Talking about the great sex you'll have after offing a citizen is the norm.

The police in America have long taken advantage of programs that give them military vehicles, clothing, and weapons at nearly no cost. That they now perceive themselves as soldiers rather than peace officers is demonstrated daily -- beginning with the flash bangs announcing their presence during no-knock raids targeting non-violent crime and continuing through their mostly-unchallenged ability to strip US citizens of their cash, cars, and other property at whim.

There is no compelling reason for cops to change their standard M.O. And, granted, lighting the occasional cop car on fire will likely only solidify their misguided "warrior" mentality. But it does make it clear that the people still have power, even if the greater power -- the US government that has treated minorities as lower classes for years -- will ultimately prevail.

Then there's the entire subclass of US citizens who spend their days bumper-stickering and forum-posting about how they and their guns will rise up against the government should it prove to be dangerous to American citizens and their rights. WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY? Outside of a few Boogaloo contingents, the "Obama is coming for muh guns" crowd has remained silent and useless, presumably digging into their eight-year supply of dehydrated food until the government makes it safe for white people to walk around again. Fuck those guys. They suck as much as the government entities they claim to view as enemies. When the shit goes down, these motherfuckers start bunkering. Cowards.

The current situation is far from ideal. No one wants to live in a civil unrest hotspot, given the unpredictability of the situation. Governments all over the nation, however, are willing to make things worse -- calling in an offshoot of the military best known for killing Vietnam War protesters. The war is at home, but the instigators are the people we've entrusted to protect society. They have continually proven they're not up to the job. And they've made things worse by pretending every movement is furtive, every black man is probably armed, and every bit of cash in a someone's wallet is probably drug money. They are road pirates, murderers, gang members, and charlatans. Let them feel the flames.

They have created their own personal hell. There should be no more free passes. This is the America they created. Whatever burns, burns. This is on their heads. No matter what any politician says in hopes of mollifying the voting public, the truth remains undeniable: you reap what you sow.

REAP MOTHERFUCKERS. REAP.

Filed Under: black lives matter, george floyd, police, police brutality, protests, racism

268 Comments

Let. The Motherfucker. Burn.

Say That Again

from the 'not-all-cops'-said-the-bucket-brigade dept

Mon, Jun 1st 2020 11:27am — Tim Cushing

Warning: this post will contain what we in the business like to call strong language, invective, and violent content. Govern yourself accordingly.

Content warning 2: possibly exceedingly long.

ONCE UPON A TIME, A MAN GOT FUCKED

Let's start with a story:

(Those of you who'd like to read a transcript, rather than watch this powerful performance by Orlando Jones [possibly for "Dear God, I'm still at work" reasons], can do so here.)

This is the history of black Americans. For a few hundred years, they weren't even Americans. And even after that -- even after the Civil War -- black Americans spent a hundred years being shunted to different schools, different neighborhoods, different restrooms, different bus seating, different water fountains. They are not us, this land of opportunity repeatedly stated.

Integration was forced. It was rarely welcomed. Being black still means being an outsider. Four hundred years of subjugation doesn't just end. This is how the story continues:

A hundred years later. You're fucked. A hundred years after that. Fucked. A hundred years after you get free, you still getting fucked out a job and shot at by police.

Fucked.

That's George Floyd. The Minneapolis resident allegedly passed a counterfeit $20 bill at a local store. The penalty was death -- delivered extrajudicially by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Officer Chauvin put his knee on the neck of the handcuffed Floyd for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. This continued for more than two minutes after Officer Chauvin had checked Floyd's pulse and stated he "couldn't find one."

It was all captured on video:

A man was dead under Chauvin's knee and yet he never moved. No one around him moved either. The other three officers at the scene watched Officer Chauvin kill a man, and not a single one of them did anything to prevent this from happening.

The good news is they've all been fired. The other news -- with the "good" excised -- is Officer Chauvin is being criminally charged. That's only news. Buy your insurance now because it's almost guaranteed Minneapolis will burn again once a jury has had a shot at this thing.

First, there's the murder charge. We all want this but there's little that supports it. It looks like murder, but the state has to prove things it's probably not going to be able to prove -- especially when the people doing the prosecuting aren't all that interested in prosecuting cops.

Third-degree murder is the most minimal of murder charges and even that might not be enough to drag Officer Chauvin into the crushing wheels of the carceral state. As Scott Greenfield explains, there doesn't appear to be enough to justify this charge in what's been seen in multiple videos. It appears Chauvin deployed a restraint technique that's been given a thumbs up by multiple law enforcement agencies.

Former police officer Derek Chauvin was charged with Murder 3, a not-insignificant charge even if it lacks the panache of Murder 1, with a potential sentence of 25 years in prison. Unlike intentional murder, the mens rea under Minnesota Statutes § 609.195 requires only a “depraved mind.”

609.195 MURDER IN THE THIRD DEGREE.

(a) Whoever, without intent to effect the death of any person, causes the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life, is guilty of murder in the third degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 25 years.

Yet, the complaint filed by the Hennepin County Attorney made almost no effort to assert that the elements of the charge were met, that Chauvin was “perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life.”

While the video clearly showed Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck, which was naturally assumed, for obvious reasons, to have been the cause of death, that alone does not suffice to meet the element that it was an “act eminently dangerous.” It’s hardly an undangerous immobilization technique, but it’s also not an uncommon restraint, and is a permissible use of force in Minneapolis. That it’s only supposed to be used to restrain someone actively resisting gives rise to a departmental violation, but doesn’t elevate a lawful use of force to an eminently dangerous act.

If that falls, we're left with manslaughter. And that probably won't be enough to convince anyone Chauvin has been punished enough for continuing to use his knee to "restrain" Floyd for almost three minutes after a cop couldn't detect his pulse.

Then there's the preliminary findings by the coroner, which have a bunch of "GET OFFICER CHAUVIN OUT OF JAIL FREE" excuses already built in. But let's start with the police officers who allowed Officer Chauvin to kill George Floyd. One officer deployed an excuse constructed by a manufacturer of "non-lethal" weapons to excuse almost any death in police custody.

“I am worried about excited delirium or whatever,” Lane said.

From that, we run into the details of the coroner's report. These are preliminary, so they will change. But the exonerative text is already in there, ready for deployment by tough-on-crime politicians, media personnel willing to act like PD stenographers, police union officials (and the police union in Minneapolis is one of the worst), and anyone else seeking to justify Chauvin's actions.

George Floyd didn't die because Officer Chauvin crushed Floyd's neck with his knee for almost nine minutes -- most of which were spent with Floyd stating he couldn't breathe. He died because he was going to die, with or without Officer Chauvin's intercession.

The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation. Mr. Floyd had underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease. The combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death.

George Floyd died of heart disease, you guys. It coincidentally killed him while he was having his neck compressed by a cop who checked his pulse and discovered he was likely already dead and continued to compress his neck for another two minutes. Also peep the "potential intoxicants," which probably gave George Floyd the superhuman strength he needed to stay alive for seven of those nine minutes before succumbing to "coronary artery disease."

If Chauvin walks, Minneapolis burns again. Multiple cities burn. Unlike other killings of black men by cops, this has prompted intense protests across the nation. This one -- committed in full view of multiple phones and at least one nearby CCTV camera -- shows cops do not give a fuck who is watching. They will do what they want to do and roll the dice on a favorable ruling by federal courts.

LET IT BURN. LET IT ALL BURN.

In response to this killing, Minneapolis burned. Looting accompanied the protests, as is often the case. We can argue about the positive/negative effects of looting for as long as you want in the comment threads, but let's take a look at a couple of facts.

We have had riots in America for years. And looting. Those arguing that the destruction of businesses during these protests is counterproductive need to have their memories refreshed. This nation began with the looting of British ships. A whole offshoot of the "rule of law" party (also the "free speech" party, which is currently headed by someone seeking to directly regulate social media platforms) named itself after protesters who boarded British ships and threw their merchandise overboard.

Even if you decry the the destruction of local businesses which may not have the funds to recover from this unexpected turn of events, you cannot argue with protesters going straight to the source of the problem.

Police precinct set on fire on the third day of demonstrations as the so-called Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul seethed over the shocking police killing of a handcuffed black man

Full story: https://t.co/yHUQtOUGHp

📸 Kerem Yucel pic.twitter.com/PRc8OM8rpR

— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 29, 2020

NYPD van has been set on fire in Brooklyn, Ny pic.twitter.com/VrtKR8qz0T

— Jason Lemon (@JasonLemon) May 30, 2020

Atlanta police car set on fire.

📷 @AlvinWilderWx pic.twitter.com/4Su8NHsDUA

— Everything Georgia (@GAFollowers) May 30, 2020

And, as a bonus, the thin blue line between us and chaos being filmed abandoning their posts and leaving us to the chaos they could never protect us from, no matter how many black men they killed.

This is the moment Minneapolis police abandoned, fled the police precinct during the protests for #JusticeForGeorge - minutes later the precinct went up in flames pic.twitter.com/thYDXBThLe

— Jorge Martin (@marxistJorge) May 29, 2020

The cops fucked this up. The cops should pay. Unfortunately, it will be taxpayers funding the rebuilding of the Third Precinct station in Minneapolis, but, by all means, burn every cop car, precinct, etc. that stands between black Americans and the respect of their rights.

The message is clear: cops are the problem, not the solution. Burn the shit that means something to them -- the stuff that protects them from the people -- and see where we all are at the end of the day.

Let's take the long view. What has this accomplished? Here's a list of riots sparked by police violence against minorities -- one dating back nearly 60 years.

1965: Los Angeles
1967: Newark
1967: Detroit
1968: King assassination
1980: Miami
1992: Los Angeles
2001: Cincinnati
2014: Ferguson
2015: Baltimore
2016: Charlotte

What did that get us? Burning small parts of the system to the ground got us Nixon (who ran on a "tough on crime" platform following the riots in the 1960s) and a immensely-harmful drug war that has done nothing to slow the supply of drugs but has done everything to improve the bottom lines of PDs and prosecutors.

Cops haven't changed. And they haven't changed despite having every reason to. Several dozen cop shops are operating under consent decrees with the Department of Justice because they can't be trusted to not violate rights en masse on their own. The rest are still acting like it's a war zone out there, cladding themselves in cast-off military gear and equipment even as crime rates remain at historic lows. It's tough to be a cop out there, say cops, even as unimpeachable data says otherwise to a bunch of impeachable cops.

But let's just say you're arguing that riots/protests/looting don't solve anything. Let's look at the data again. Here are the years where nothing happened:

1966
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2017
2018
2019

Did not attacking cops help then? Did leaving retail outlets intact make policing better? Did a lack of looting force cops to realize their systemic bias was hurting communities? Did all of this non-action bring us to a better place in terms of our relationship with law enforcement? (Those of you who are not minorities can put your hands down. Thanks.)

Short answer: it did not. The boot stamping on a human face forever is the past, present, and future. This image was personified by Officer Chauvin, who placed his knee on the neck of a human being suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill until he died. And continued to perform this inadvertently symbolic move for nearly another three minutes after that.

If it's going to burn -- and it should -- it should start with those who have earned the flames. Cop cars are burning. Police stations are burning. Good. There is nothing wrong with this. The cops pretended to fear us whenever it was convenient. They claimed their subjective fear that someone might have a weapon justified every bullet they pumped into a person. Then they did nothing when people carrying actual guns marched on government buildings to demand access to restaurants and haircuts.

Fuck them. If you're going to cry about the threats separating you from making it home to your family every night, at least be consistent. And if you can't be consistent, at least restrain yourself from killing non-resistant people in the street in front of several cameras. And for fuck's sake, if you can't do that last part, it just means you don't fear the public and their representatives. It means you think the courts will clear you, if not your own department and union. No public official deserves this much deference, trust, or unearned protection.

YOU OWE US.

That obligation has never changed. The only thing that has changed is the other branches of the government, which have decided -- either through QI rulings or deference to police unions -- that the public matters less than those sworn to serve it.

This is not me wading into a recent controversy with my eye on harvesting clicks. This is me -- and this site -- covering the abuses perpetrated by law enforcement agencies for years. There is nothing anomalous about this event. It just shows accountability can't be brought solely by the mute witnesses of criminal acts by law enforcement officers. We have our cameras pointed at them. They have their own cameras. And yet, they still don't care.

If this is how they want it, we have the power to give it to them.

Be the god of righteous hellfire. All these years of not setting fire to the possessions of an invading force intent on treating fellow citizens as enemy combatants has done nothing.

Let the motherfucker burn.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, derek chauvin, free speech, george floyd, police, police brutality, protests, racism, violence

217 Comments

College Student Gets Thrown On The Ground And A Gun Pointed At His Head For Committing The Crime Of 'Taking A Selfie While Black'

Legal Issues

from the lots-of-power,-zero-impulse-control dept

Wed, Feb 19th 2020 3:51pm — Tim Cushing

The latest crime to result in civil litigation is "taking a selfie while black." Doing so in Illinois gets your face pushed in the snow, a knee in your back, and a gun held to your head. (via Simple Justice)

Jaylan Butler was traveling back from a swim meet in South Dakota with the EIU swim team. During a break at an East Moline rest stop, the bus driver suggested Butler take a selfie in front of the "BUCKLE UP, IT'S THE LAW" sign at the rest stop.

This somehow prompted all law enforcement hell to break loose. From Butler's lawsuit [PDF]:

Mr. Butler took a photo of himself smiling in front of the sign, and then began walking back toward the bus.

[...]

After only a few steps, several law enforcement vehicles with flashing lights suddenly pulled up in front of him.

[...]

When Mr. Butler saw the law enforcement vehicles pull up, he was surprised and confused, but knew what to do. He instantly stopped, put his hands up, dropped the cell phone that was in his hand, and dropped to his knees.

[...]

Defendants exited the vehicles with their firearms pointed at Mr. Butler. At least one Defendant was carrying what appeared to be a rifle.

Defendants shouted at Mr. Butler: “Get down!” and “Don’t fucking move! Stay right there!” Mr. Butler kept his hands up and complied with Defendants’ orders.

Defendants forced Mr. Butler to lie face down on the snowy ground.

On information and belief, Defendants Staes, Asquini, Pena, and additional Defendants held Mr. Butler down while Defendant Bush handcuffed his arms behind his back.

At least one Defendant had his knee pressed into Mr. Butler’s back, and at least one Defendant was pressing down on Mr. Butler’s neck.

Another Defendant was squatting down in front of Mr. Butler. He put his handgun against Mr. Butler’s forehead and said, “If you keep moving, I’m going to blow your fucking head off.”

This impromptu show of force somehow involved officers from three different law enforcement agencies. The whole thing played out in front of several witnesses and no officer bothered to explain why they suspected a student in an EIU jacket to be worthy of guns-out force deployment while standing a few feet away from an EIU bus manned by an EIU bus driver.

In the absence of any explanations from the involved agencies, this appears to be intra-agency cooperation at its worst, where every officer has the same bias towards black males.

Everything about this gets worse when you read Barb Ickes' article for the Rock Island Dispatch-Argus. (We'll assume she did not write the unfortunate headline that tries to exonerate everyone currently being sued.) Not a single officer or official can explain what happened or why it happened. There is not a coherent answer to be found in this report.

The Rock Island Sheriff's Department's lawyer denies the two Does listed as defendants were involved in this incident. The attorney offered no comment about the two named Rock Island deputies. According to the attorney, the Rock Island officers were called in to assist Henry County Sheriff's deputies. This assertion was not backed by the Henry County Sheriff.

Henry County Sheriff Kerry Loncka looked up records from Feb. 24 and said no reports were filed by Henry County deputies.

I guess a guns-out stop that results only in Constitutional violations isn't worth noting. The sheriff speculated it might have had something to do with a report of a driver shooting at another vehicle but the suspect went into Rock Island county before crashing his car and the sheriff had no further details.

The Rock Island Sheriff was also mostly unaware of what happened that night.

Rock Island County Sheriff Gerry Bustos said he knew little about the incident but said he was not, as the officers who arrested Butler are said to have claimed, responding to an active-shooter event that night.

The only thing even close to an "active shooter" on the books that night was a call about a 10-year-old playing with a toy gun down by the railroad tracks, which was resolved by a deputy speaking to the child's parents.

The Henry County Sheriff also said his deputies asked for Rock Island's assistance after being asked by the Illinois State Police to assist in whatever it was that no involved agency can clearly state they were combining forces to handle. The State Police have refused to offer any comment on this incident. And it's now stonewalling requests for information about its involvement in the arrest/assault of Jaylan Butler.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records that would explain what police were responding to when they mistakenly took Butler into custody, a FOIA officer responded that no information could be supplied without the name and date of birth of the person arrested.

Despite objections that the FOIA request sought only incident reports related to the events of Feb. 24, the FOIA officer did not respond. A public information officer for the Illinois State Police said last week that she would try to help provide information "ASAP." Five days later, no information was provided.

Even if we assume the drive-by shooting that appears to be a post facto rationalization for the treatment of Butler is actually true, it still makes no sense. Why would officers assume a person wearing an EIU jacket standing near an EIU bus full of other students wearing EIU jackets is the shooter they were looking for? Why were they at the rest stop in the first place? This speculation does us no good, but the shittiest part of this is that we shouldn't need to be engaging in speculation in the first place. The involved agencies should have had an answer for what happened here, but between the three of them, not a single person could explain what happened here, much less why it happened.

We're not going to get a real answer from these agencies, not even under oath. What it looks like is probably what is, as Scott Greenfield explains.

No matter how you twist this, when the deputy put the one black guy on the ground and uttered the words taught in every police academy everywhere, “If you move, I’ll blow your fucking (expletive added) head off,” there was no excuse, rational or not, credible or not, offered. They couldn’t even be bothered to make up a lie. Maybe, in response to Butler’s suit, they’ll get another chance to come up with something to at least pretend it wasn’t pure, unadulterated racism.

No officer is going to testify that they saw a black male and made their move, presuming they'd find something to justify the stop and use of force later. But, in the deafening absence of any explanation that fits the most minimal definition of the word "credible," it's not at all far-fetched to assume the officers think "black" is the same thing as "suspicious."

Filed Under: east moline, gerry bustos, illinois, jaylan butler, racism, rock island sheriff

Sacha Baron Cohen Is Wrong About Social Media, Wrong About Section 230... And Even Wrong About His Own Comedy

Say That Again

from the that's-not-how-any-of-this-works dept

Fri, Nov 22nd 2019 9:31am — Mike Masnick

I honestly did not think I'd ever be writing about Sacha Baron Cohen's thoughts on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, but this is 2019 and nothing makes sense any more. And because nothing makes sense any more, I'm going to start out discussing Sacha Baron Cohen's views on CDA 230 by actually talking about magician Penn Jillette. Jillette has a podcast called Penn's Sunday School that is often really, really good. And he actually talked about Sacha Baron Cohen in the latest episode -- which, bizarrely, is not on the page I linked to, because it appears that Penn and his team stopped updating their podcast webpage last month.

This was the second time in recent episodes that Jillette talked about Cohen, and he made a really great point, noting that Sacha Baron Cohen and many of his supporters believe that what Cohen is doing is showing the "true nature" of how awful people are, by getting them to do awful things. But, Jillette argues, in a fairly compelling way, the opposite may actually be true. His belief is that Cohen is actually demonstrating how nice most people are, in that when they're approached by someone asking them to say or do something, they want to be nice and accommodate the person who's asking. The argument, which Penn explains in much more detail, is that if someone is talking to you in person, you want them to like you and you want to be nice to them, and thus if they ask you do something silly or crazy, you might just do it out of kindness or, in some cases, just "playing along." And thus, his argument is that Sacha Baron Cohen totally misunderstands his own comedy and what it shows about human nature and how people "really are."

He made the argument more fully last week, in the November 11th episode (if you can find that), where he said:

When I watch Borat, okay, it was alright and funny. But he's an incredible performer. One of the greatest actors ever seen, Sacha Baron Cohen. And deeply, deeply funny. And I've heard from Trey & Matt, the South Park guys, (they know him) that he's a wonderful guy. All that.... And I heard his new show is fabulous. But... he went on and said that the Borat movie showed how much anti-Semitism there was in the US, because people went along with him saying all these things. And I just don't think it shows that.

I think it shows that people are kind -- especially to someone who seems awkward and out of place. And they will say most anything to make them comfortable. And right when all the Ali G and Borat stuff was happening on HBO. Right during that, there were these two girls, they were 16 or something, from Japan. And there was a show, we were told, that they had won. And their big win was that they were able to meet any celebrities in the world that they wanted to meet. And they chose Penn & Teller!

So there were these 16-year-old fans of Penn & Teller from Japan, and were flown over by this TV company. And we're backstage in the monkey room, in the green room, and there are TV cameras set up. And, one person kinda sorta speaks English. Everyone speaks more English than I speak Japanese, but they're not fluent. And the two girls speak very, very, very small amounts of English. And they're doing an interview with us, and spending time with us, and having us hold up fans and put on hats that are Japanese, but it would all feel racially insensitive if we were just doing it. But these two Japanese girls were telling us to do this. And there's cameras rolling. And there are producers. And they're saying "hold up the fan and bow and say this" and it seemed a little bit burlesque-y as to the Japanese culture, but we were being led by people from Japan...

Then on stage they had us come out with our fans and got a shot of it, and had us saying stuff in Japanese. And they were asking interview questions that did not make any sense. And sometimes they were saying things that I think were the opposite of what they meant. And I was answering and going along with them and doing the best job I could to go along with them and make them feel comfortable. And while I was doing that, I kept thinking about Borat and Ali G and how if he came in to do an interview with us, I would do it exactly like those people he's lampooning.

So I think the stuff he's doing is brilliantly funny. What he's demonstrating is not that people are willing to say something that's anti-Semitic, but that they're willing to bend over backwards to make someone comfortable.

On the latest episode that just came out this week, he revisits this point and references someone else's discussion about a specific episode of Cohen's show and how Penn's take resonated, since it was clearly people playing along with the situation, rather than doing something out of ill-will or malicious intent. To be honest, I think both views are probably correct to some degree. Some of what Cohen does is calling out and demonstrating ignorance and bias that was previously (mostly) hidden. But, there's a part of it that probably is what Penn is saying as well: people performing for cameras and trying to be nice to a confused, but (they think) well-meaning stranger.

And, thus, I think the larger truth is that there are many factors involved in what makes people tick, and just taking a superficial view is rarely enough to really understand the deeper workings, motivations, and incentives.

The more I thought about this over the past few weeks, the more compelling an argument it was. And having just listened to the latest podcast, I had been thinking even more about it... just as I heard that Cohen delivered a keynote address for the ADL, in which he slams social media companies, claims that they're effectively complicit in all the bad stuff on their platforms, and then slams Section 230 of the CDA. You can watch it here, via YouTube, one of the platforms he attacks:

And, while I've seen some friends and colleagues celebrating aspects of his speech -- which is funny and entertaining and comes across as powerful -- it occurred to me that he's making the exact same mistake regarding social media/Section 230 as Jillette suggests (compellingly) that Cohen is making about what his comedy shows. He's getting it all backwards, blaming the wrong thing, and misunderstanding what's at the heart of the issue. Along the way, he also makes some factual mistakes. Indeed, it seems like while he's touching on some truths, and some realities about how people are using social media and how social media companies operate, he's so focused on the superficial aspects of it, that he's completely misunderstanding the deeper workings, motivations, and incentives at play.

What do all these dangerous trends have in common? I’m just a comedian and an actor, not a scholar. But one thing is pretty clear to me. All this hate and violence is being facilitated by a handful of internet companies that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history.

That sounds good and many people believe this, but the facts simply don't support this. Earlier this year, we discussed Yochai Benkler's new book, the excellent Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics, which is filled with charts and data showing something pretty damn clearly: most of the disinformation and misinformation didn't go very far until it was "validated" by a mainstream news source, namely: Fox News. Yes, the lies and shams did start out on social media, but they were mostly ignored. Until Fox News validated them, then they spread like wildfire.

So while it's good that Cohen admits that he's not a scholar, "Network Propaganda" is written by three excellent scholars, and perhaps we should listen to them, rather than a comedian, on this subject?

Again, Cohen gets some stuff right, and the written version of his speech also does link to some research, but the conclusions he draws from it don't actually seem supported by what he links to. He's right that the algorithms on these platforms were tuned to increase "engagement," and that resulted in a lot of bogus recommendations, dragging people further down a hole of radicalization. But, as with his view of his own comedy, he leaves out the actual human element. How many people is this actually influencing? He doesn't say. He doesn't know. How many people are being "radicalized" via these platforms? He doesn't say. He doesn't know. He assumes it's so because we hear about it all the time. But where do we hear about it? Oh yeah, back on the mainstream news.

On the internet, everything can appear equally legitimate. Breitbart resembles the BBC. The fictitious Protocols of the Elders of Zion look as valid as an ADL report. And the rantings of a lunatic seem as credible as the findings of a Nobel Prize winner. We have lost, it seems, a shared sense of the basic facts upon which democracy depends.

I've heard similar claims before, but it doesn't actually seem supported by much evidence. Yes, some people believe utter lies and racist bullshit. But they believed that before. And, at a time when similar rhetoric comes directly from the President of the United States and some of his top aides, it's difficult to see how this is an internet problem, rather than one that lays deeper in our society and human nature.

Cohen's "solutions" to this are equally backwards and often silly. He spends much time going after Mark Zuckerberg in particular, which is fine, but he misunderstands or misrepresents nearly every point that he's talking about. Indeed, I'd argue that Cohen's attacks on Zuckerberg are just as "fake news" as some of the content he's complaining about. Cohen mocks Zuckerberg's point that choices Facebook makes are "choices... around free expression." There are many great criticisms of Zuckerberg's confused notions of free expression (if you want to read a good one I'd recommend Jameel Jaffer's Facebook and Free Speech Are Different Things). But Cohen's point is not that. He first makes a correct point, that Facebook is not the First Amendment and can make any decision it wants about who and what to host:

Zuckerberg claimed that new limits on what’s posted on social media would be to “pull back on free expression.” This is utter nonsense. The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law” abridging freedom of speech, however, this does not apply to private businesses like Facebook. We’re not asking these companies to determine the boundaries of free speech across society. We just want them to be responsible on their platforms.

But later in the speech he contradicts this point, twice over. First, despite claiming (correctly) that the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to Facebook's hosting decisions, later on he directly urges Congress to regulate speech on Facebook, which is very much prohibited by the 1st Amendment. Second, since so much of his argument is that Facebook and other internet companies need to be more aggressive in pulling down speech, you'd think he's support Section 230, which is what enables them to do so.

But, instead, he blindly, and confusingly, attacks it:

In every other industry, you can be sued for the harm you cause. Publishers can be sued for libel, people can be sued for defamation. I’ve been sued many times! I’m being sued right now by someone whose name I won’t mention because he might sue me again! But social media companies are largely protected from liability for the content their users post—no matter how indecent it is—by Section 230 of, get ready for it, the Communications Decency Act. Absurd!

Fortunately, Internet companies can now be held responsible for pedophiles who use their sites to target children. I say, let’s also hold these companies responsible for those who use their sites to advocate for the mass murder of children because of their race or religion. And maybe fines are not enough. Maybe it’s time to tell Mark Zuckerberg and the CEOs of these companies: you already allowed one foreign power to interfere in our elections, you already facilitated one genocide in Myanmar, do it again and you go to jail.

This is so backwards and confused that it's difficult to know where to start. Other than to note that the "absurd" part is in Cohen's description of all of this. First, the point of Section 230 is not about removing liability, but about properly applying the liability to the party who actually broke the law. He's right that people can be sued for defamation. Because they said something defamatory. Section 230 makes sure that those who are defamed sue those who defamed them -- and not the intermediary tool that was used to publish the defamation.

And his apparent shock that Section 230 was part of a law called the "Communications Decency Act" demonstrates his complete lack of knowledge of the history of the law -- and how it originated as a law for widespread censorship of the internet -- which was all thrown out as unconstitutional. Section 230 is all that remains. Perhaps someone should send him a copy of Jeff Kosseff's book, which explains all the history.

His claim about "internet companies can now be held responsible for pedophiles" seems to be a near total misreading of last year's passing of FOSTA, which added an exception to Section 230 for sex trafficking (not for pedophilia). And, of course, as we've pointed out way too many times, Section 230 has never protected sites from federal criminal charges in the first place.

The final point is also nonsense: how, exactly, is Mark Zuckerberg supposed to prevent everyone from misusing Facebook (to avoid apparent jail time)? Cohen's answer in the speech is a mixture of ignorance and nonsense. He suggests hiring as many people as it takes... and also not posting stuff to the internet until it's been reviewed.

It only seems fair to say to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter: your product is defective, you are obliged to fix it, no matter how much it costs and no matter how many moderators you need to employ.

But that assumes, falsely, there there is a solution that is just "hire more moderators." This is a riff on the standard "nerd harder" idea, but it's equally nonsensical. We're right back to the Masnick Impossibility Theorem. He's assuming there's some optimal level of content moderation that can be reached by just throwing more resources at it. There is not. He might as well be suggesting that the answer to all the bigots in the world is for Hollywood to hire more Sacha Baron Cohens until they expose them all. It's a silly suggestion that makes no sense.

Furthermore, it doesn't take into account a much larger issue that has been the subject of many discussions among content moderation experts: the human cost of content moderation. It takes a huge toll on people's lives to sit them in front of computers and make it their job to look at the worst stuff being posted. And Sacha Baron Cohen wants to force more people to do that job? Really?

Here’s another good practice: slow down. Every single post doesn’t need to be published immediately. Oscar Wilde once said that “we live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.” But is having every thought or video posted instantly online, even if it is racist or criminal or murderous, really a necessity? Of course not!

The shooter who massacred Muslims in New Zealand live streamed his atrocity on Facebook where it then spread across the internet and was viewed likely millions of times. It was a snuff film, brought to you by social media. Why can’t we have more of a delay so this trauma-inducing filth can be caught and stopped before it’s posted in the first place?

This is right back to a "nerd harder" idea, that shows a catastrophic level of ignorance of the scale here. Having more time would not have stopped the video of the New Zealand shooting from spreading online. That's not how it works. It also grossly underestimates what this would mean for the internet. It would turn it into TV. In which you'd have a small number of gatekeepers handpicking what shows were allowed, and everything else would be blocked. This may be what Hollywood would like to see the internet turn into, but it would destroy nearly everything good and powerful about the internet today and its fundamental nature as a communications medium.

Cohen also seems to jump on the bandwagon of those ignorant of Section 230 by saying that these big internet companies should be declared "publishers," as if that would do anything.

It’s time to finally call these companies what they really are—the largest publishers in history. And here’s an idea for them: abide by basic standards and practices just like newspapers, magazines and TV news do every day. We have standards and practices in television and the movies; there are certain things we cannot say or do. In England, I was told that Ali G could not curse when he appeared before 9pm. Here in the U.S., the Motion Picture Association of America regulates and rates what we see. I’ve had scenes in my movies cut or reduced to abide by those standards. If there are standards and practices for what cinemas and television channels can show, then surely companies that publish material to billions of people should have to abide by basic standards and practices too.

Except... no. All of that, again, is talking about concepts that were brought about (often controversially, or sometimes through questionable legal means) for broadcast media. But the internet is not about broadcast. It's about communications. It's about enabling anyone to communicate with anyone. Should we have "standards and practices" for how the telephone is used? Should the Postal Service read through all your mail and not send it on if you say bad words? That's what Cohen is asking for. You don't apply broadcast standards to communications systems. It just doesn't work that way.

Hell, referencing the MPAA's ratings system is really, really sketchy, since the MPAA ratings system was a direct outgrowth of the Hays Code, which was used to censor films for decades, as there was a moral panic about "decency" in filmmaking. People look back on that era with regret at how that stifled free expression. For Cohen, of all people, to use that as an example of what we should bring to the internet is striking. Strikingly stupid and censorial.

In every other industry, a company can be held liable when their product is defective. When engines explode or seatbelts malfunction, car companies recall tens of thousands of vehicles, at a cost of billions of dollars.

Here's the problem: the assumption here is that it's these internet companies that are "defective" rather than human nature and society itself.

Cohen obviously means well. But, as Penn Jillette noted about Cohen's comedy, it appears he's getting the wrong message out of how people behave on the internet. Some people are bad and behave badly. But many more are wonderful, and the internet has enabled them to connect and communicate as well, often in much greater numbers, and enabled them to do even more powerful things for good. Because, as Jillette points out, most people are, in fact, pretty good deep down inside. Let's not throw the internet "down the well" because some people misuse it. Let's use the internet to spread more good ideas, better help people who need it, and focus on realistic ways to stop hatred, rather than fantastical ideas that sound like they came from the mind of "wanna-be-gangsta Ali G" rather than "brilliant" Sacha Baron Cohen.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, bias, cda 230, comedy, content moderation, free speech, penn jillette, racism, responsibility, sacha baron cohen, section 230, social media

121 Comments

Federal Judge Asks DEA To Explain Why All 179 Of Its Stash House Sting Targets Are Minorities

Legal Issues

from the stings-themselves-still-problematic-even-without-the-bias dept

Tue, Nov 19th 2019 9:33am — Tim Cushing

Federal judges appear to be tiring of the government's long-running entrapment programs. One of the federal law enforcment's favorite "enforcement" efforts is creating crime in order to bust "criminals." Agencies like the ATF and DEA find someone in need of cash -- usually a minority someone -- and use undercover agents and confidential informants to convince them to raid a drug stash house for some easy money.

The twist is the drug stash house is fake. There are no drugs. There are no armed guards protecting the drugs. Once the mark arrives with a weapon and a plan of attack, the ATF arrests the person for thinking about robbing a fake stash house to steal nonexistent drugs.

The other twist is the prosecution. Since the drugs never existed, the ATF is free to claim the targeted stash was large enough to trigger mandatory minimum sentences.

A handful of judges have already found stash house stings to be a questionable use of government resources, if not ultra-shady operations that put the government in the position of being the judge and the jury by fabricating drug amounts to ensure longer sentences are handed down.

Here's what federal judge Ruben Castillo had to say about stash house stings:

It is undisputed that between 2006 and 2013, the defendants charged in this District in the ATF false stash house cases were 78.7 black, 9.6 percent Hispanic, and 11.7 percent white. During this same period, the District's adult population was approximately 18 percent black, 11 percent Hispanic, and 63 percent White. These numbers generate great disrespect for law enforcement efforts. Disrespect for the law cannot be tolerated during these difficult times. It is time for false stash house cases to end and be relegated to the dark corridors of our past. To put it simply, our criminal justice system should not tolerate false stash house cases in 2018.

Castillo also noted that the government never engaged in this type of borderline entrapment during the darkest days of Prohibition.

[E]ven during the low points of the great violence caused by the alcohol wars of Prohibition, the ATP did not seek to use "false alcohol warehouse" tactics against any ethnic organized crime groups to promote public safety.

Judge Jane Stranch's words -- written for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals -- were no less harsh.

The unseemly nature of the Government’s activity is emphasized by its failure to achieve its declared goals of jailing dangerous criminals and making our streets safer. Evidence showing that these hurry-up set-ups achieve the stated goals was not proffered and the facts here demonstrate why: no known dangerous individuals or criminal enterprises were researched or targeted and no pre-existing drug rings or conspiracies were broken up. In fact, this sting trapped Flowers, a gainfully employed young man with no criminal record.

Unfortunately, the court found no way to reverse the sentence handed down. The barriers to a successful lawsuit against a federal government agency are almost insurmountable, and the ATF knows this, so it has no reason to stop performing the laziest form of "enforcement" it can engage in.

Judge Otis Wright tore into the ATF in his decision as well:

In these stash-house cases, the Government’s “participation in the offense conduct” is what makes them particularly repugnant to the Constitution. Everything about the scheme—and therefore almost everything bearing upon a defendant’s ultimate sentence—hinges solely on the Government’s whim. Why were there not 10 kilograms in the stash house? Or 100? Or 1,000? Why were the guards allegedly armed—necessitating that Defendants bring weapons along with them? All of these factors came down to the ATF and the undercover agent alone. That sort of arbitrariness offends the Constitution’s due-process demands.

The end result was only five years shaved off the defendant's 19-year sentence -- a sentence that rested solely on the ATF's claims about the total weight of the nonexistent drugs in the nonexistent stash house the defendant never raided.

Perhaps the remedy lies somewhere earlier in the process, well before mandatory minimum sentences -- prompted by government agents' claims about nonexistent drugs -- are imposed. Judge Jed Rakoff is demanding the government produce some evidence that its stings don't primarily target minorities.

This case involves a DEA sting operation utilizing a number of fictitious drug shipments. They follow the same pattern as the ATF's stings. The government approaches its marks and tries to talk them into robbing fake drug dealers of their fake drugs. Then it swoops in and arrests its dupes the moment they start moving forward with robbery suggested by the government.

The opening paragraph of the order [PDF] makes it clear Judge Rakoff thinks these stings are bullshit:

By their very nature, so-called "reverse sting" operations, in which the Government creates the illusion of crimes in order to catch would-be criminals, are open to potential abuse, since they are not cabined by the demands of reality, but only by the vagaries of imagination.

The seven defendants in this case -- all "men of color" -- are arguing the government is engaging in selective enforcement by primarily targeting minorities with sting operations. Judge Rakoff appears to think that might be true. Or, at the very least, the government should be obliged to explain why every single one of its sting efforts result in arrested minorities.

After some discussion about which discovery standard should be applied to selective enforcement allegations, the court comes to this conclusion:

[T]he appropriate standard is that where a defendant who is a member of a protected group can show that that group has been singled out for reverse sting operations to a statistically significant extent in comparison with other groups, this is sufficient to warrant further inquiry and discovery.

Here, defendants have presented evidence that not a single one of the 179 individuals targeted in DEA reverse sting operations in SDNY in the past ten years was white, and that all but two were African-American or Hispanic. This is in stark contrast to the racial makeup of New York and Bronx Counties, which are 20.5% African-American, 39.7% Hispanic, and 29.5% White. This is also in contrast to NYPD crime and enforcement data for felony drug arrests (42.7% African-American, 40.8% Hispanic, and 12.7% White), firearms arrests (65.1% African-America, 24.3% Hispanic, 9.7% White), and robbery arrests (60.6% African-American, 31.1% Hispanic, 5.1% White).

And, just in case the government wants to argue this is merely a statistical fluke, the defendants also have some expert testimony they'd like the DEA to attempt to rebut.

Furthermore, defendants have provided compelling expert analysis demonstrating that these numbers are statistically significant. According to a rigorous analysis conducted by Dr. Crystal S. Yang, a Harvard law and economics professor, it is highly unlikely, to the point of statistical significance, that the racially disparate impact of the DEA' s reverse sting operations is simply random.

Here's how Yang explains the unlikeliness of 177 of 179 targets being "randomly" Black or Latino:

[U]nless the pool of similarly situated individuals is comprised of at least 96.0% Latinos or Blacks~ it is highly unlikely that one could get a sample of 179 targeted individuals where 177 or more individuals are Latino or Black.

The government will need to produce paperwork showing how it initiates stings and how it decides on sting targets.

Accordingly, and for now, discovery will be limited to the Government providing to the defendants, by no later than November 22, 2019, (1) all DEA manuals, circulars, protocols, and the like that provide guidelines for how and when reverse stings should be originated; and (2) all notes, memoranda, or other investigative material showing how defendants were identified and evaluated as targets in this particular reverse sting operation.

It's unlikely anything turned over by the DEA will say "exclusively target Latinos and Blacks." But this won't help the government, which will still need to explain how guidelines and protocols that don't insist on targeting minorities seem to produce nothing by minority defendants. And if it can't explain that to Judge Rakoff's satisfaction, the claims of selective enforcement will move forward.

More judges should push back against "reverse sting" operations. There's been no evidence offered these operations do anything more than put harmless people behind bars for years. When the targets are fake drugs and fake drug runners, zero drugs/drug runners are being taken off the streets.

Filed Under: dea, doj, entrapment, jed rakoff, racism, stash houses, targeting minorities

Impossible Content Moderation Dilemmas: Talking About Racism Blocked As Hate Speech

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the facebooking-while-black dept

Wed, May 1st 2019 9:27am — Mike Masnick

For all the completely evidence-free talk of "anti-conservative bias" on social media, as we keep pointing out, the real problem is that moderating content at scale is impossible to do well. I know I've been repeating this a lot lately, but it's because some people still don't seem to be getting this, or why it's important.

Take, for example, this recent USA Today story talking about the content moderation woes not of conservatives on the platform, but of black users trying to talk about racism on Facebook. Or women talking about sexism. It's getting blocked as hate speech.

For Wysinger, an activist whose podcast The C-Dubb Show frequently explores anti-black racism, the troubling episode recalled the nation's dark history of lynching, when charges of sexual violence against a white woman were used to justify mob murders of black men.

"White men are so fragile," she fired off, sharing William's post with her friends, "and the mere presence of a black person challenges every single thing in them."

It took just 15 minutes for Facebook to delete her post for violating its community standards for hate speech. And she was warned if she posted it again, she'd be banned for 72 hours.

This kind of thing apparently happens all the time.

She says black people can't talk about racism on Facebook without risking having their posts removed and being locked out of their accounts in a punishment commonly referred to as "Facebook jail." For Wysinger, the Neeson post was just another example of Facebook arbitrarily deciding that talking about racism is racist.

"It is exhausting," she says, "and it drains you emotionally."

Of course, this kind of thing happens all the time and we've been pointing it out for years. Rules against hate speech are used to suppress the oppressed talking out about oppressors. Rules against terrorist content are used to erase evidence of war crimes. Over and over again when you demand that policies be put in place to suppress speech to "protect" people, it's often the people you want to protect who are harmed the most.

Black activists say hate speech policies and content moderation systems formulated by a company built by and dominated by white men fail the very people Facebook claims it's trying to protect. Not only are the voices of marginalized groups disproportionately stifled, Facebook rarely takes action on repeated reports of racial slurs, violent threats and harassment campaigns targeting black users, they say.

While I'm sure it doesn't help matters that white men dominate these companies, I'd argue that we see the same issue with basically every kind of speech suppression effort involving top down rules. Trying to suppress speech about "bad stuff" will always, always, always sweep up important and necessary conversations about the bad stuff -- including people calling out the bad stuff.

That's why it's really time for everyone to start thinking about very different approaches, rather than continuing to insist that if platforms just nerd harder they'll find the magic bullet that allows them to erase "bad content" while keeping all "good content."

Filed Under: activism, content moderation, hate speech, racism
Companies: facebook

109 Comments

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