NPR Posits Nazis Are Recruiting All Of Our Children In Online Games With Very Little Evidence

from the nein dept

At this point, journalistic handwringing over the assumed dangers of video games has moved beyond annoyance levels and into the trope category. Violence, aggression, becoming sedentary, and the erosion of social skills have all been claimed to be outcomes of video games becoming a dominant choice for entertainment among the population that isn't collecting social security checks, and all typically with little to no evidence backing it up. This has become so routine that one can almost copy and paste past responses into future arguments.

But NPR really went full moral panic mode with a post that essentially claimed the recruitment of children into rightwing and Nazi extremist groups is a full on thing, while an actual analysis of what it relied on to make that claim reveals, well, very little of substance at all.

Yesterday, NPR published an article titled “Right-Wing Hate Groups Are Recruiting Video Gamers.” It’s the latest, most exaggerated version of a gaming-flavored narrative woven by elite media orgs in an apparent attempt to explain the rise of right-wing extremism in America. This article claims that games “have become one avenue for recruitment by right-wing extremist groups”; to support this, the reporter opens her story with a tale of a 15-year-old Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player whose father, John—no last name given—was one day startled to see neo-Nazi propaganda his son had printed out.

Yesterday’s NPR article, which attempted to make this case, was riddled with the sort of factual elisions one would expect out of propaganda journalism. On the basis of one real-life example and three interviews with apparent experts, the writer claims that gamers are getting plucked out of shooty-shooty games and dropped right into neo-Nazi forums. The most basic problem here feels beneath mention: inflating one anonymous father and his anonymous son’s journey through the bad net into an entire movement is preposterous. Had the reporter spoken to even two, three or four kids who had been rescued from the clutches of Fortniteextremists, it still wouldn’t have been enough. “Where,” one would ask, “is the sense of scale?”

And, as Kotaku notes, the problem of the scale in all of this leads one to the next obvious question. If this were really happening at a level that would warrant sounding the parental klaxons, then how has it been missed by gaming journalists, journalists writ large, the federal authorities, and the federal government? Are we really expected to accept, all on the back of one anecdotal story and a couple of experts contacted for comment, that the much wider world has missed Nazi recruitment in online gaming entirely? I don't know if ya'll have noticed, but there's been a bit of a focus on Nazis and white nationalism as of late. This just flew entirely under the radar?

Even the experts cited in the NPR piece leave very much to be desired. Christian Picciolini, who I have heard speak in other forums and who I generally found to be bright and trustworthy, comes off as simply looking foolish when asked to flesh out his concerns as outlined in the NPR post.

Picciolini, who describes himself as a “former white supremacist leader,” came onto Kotaku’s radar in July, when he hosted a Reddit AMA. In it, he claimed that right-wing extremists go into multiplayer games to recruit vulnerable demographics into their cause. Intrigued, my colleague Kashmir Hill and I reached out to Picciolini to hear more. We were curious about the right-wing movers and shakers who could fit an entire political pitch into a Fortnite match.

When we asked Picciolini for evidence of his claim and an interview, he referred us to “the many who have experienced the recruitment” and attached a few screenshots of Nazi imagery in open world games like All Points Bulletin. He also forwarded a screenshot of the game Active Shooter, a school shooting simulator, which was pulled from Steam before its release. Another screenshot was from a YouTube video titled “Fag Jews” in which someone named AuTiSmGaMiNg played Call of Duty. It had 11 views.

If that response is the best that can be mustered, from someone who is supposed to be an expert witness to the core claim that Nazis are recruiting children in online games no less, then this is going to look like ginned up panic-mongering. And that's a very real problem, given that there are some very serious social issues we're dealing with in this country right now, including issues that surround xenophobic white nationalist groups. That problem does exist, but when the fight against that sort of thing is carried out by people willing to inflate the concerns on the specifics, it's easy to see how this can all result in a boy who cried wolf scenario.

Given the large swaths of the population now playing video games on the regular, a post like NPR's can only serve to damage its reputation for journalism.

When fear-mongering moves into spaces that require rigorous investigative reporting and large-scale interviewing, it stumbles into the danger zone of modern journalism: “This wild, but unlikely thing is happening, widely. Please panic.”

That sort of thing might sell as a story in the short term, but it does long term damage in building trust with the reading audience. That's far more dangerous, actually, than whatever tiny number of Nazis are actually trying to lure kids into Nazism via the video game vector.

Filed Under: evidence, moral panic, nazis, online games, recruiting, video games
Companies: npr

FBI, CBP Join Forces To Turn Airports Into Informant Recruiting Centers

from the which-do-you-prefer?-a.)-spying-for-us-or-b.)-being-arrested? dept

The FBI and CBP have been using the nation's borders as recruiting stations for informants. This phrasing makes it sound a lot more voluntary than it actually is. The Intercept has obtained documents showing how these two agencies work together to pressure foreign visitors into basically becoming spies for the United States.

The FBI gives CBP a list of countries of origin to watch out for among passengers, sometimes specifying other characteristics, such as travel history or age. It also briefs CPB officers on its intelligence requirements. The CBP sifts through its data to provide the bureau with a list of incoming travelers of potential interest. The FBI can then ask CBP to flag people for extra screening, questioning, and follow-up visits. According to the documents, the FBI uses the border questioning as a pretext to approach people it wants to turn informant and inserts itself into the immigration process by instructing agents on how to offer an “immigration relief dangle.”

These documents confirm what was alleged in a lawsuit filed by Rahinah Ibrahim two years ago. Her filing pointed out that the FBI has used threats in the past to secure cooperation, like revoking traveling privileges or trying to prosecute immigrants for minor crimes. Ibrahim's lawsuit had another allegation: the secret "no fly" list is also being used as a coercive tool, with agents threatening to add travelers' names to the list if they refused to go to work as informants.

The documents obtained here note that the joint recruiting efforts have expanded far past the nation's border. Some form exists in every airport in the nation. Travel to and from certain countries is flagged for extra scrutiny. The CBP collects extensive data on everything crossing US borders -- people or products -- and turns this over to the FBI with any potential targets pre-flagged. It also provides the FBI with a list of passengers expected to arrive from "countries of interest" at the nation's airports within the next 72 hours.

The CBP is supposedly in the border-securing business and the FBI in the law enforcement business, but these directives turn them both into intelligence agencies. This has made both agencies far more interested in recruitment and data harvesting than their original directives. The documents show that the CBP tends to grab the most data, starting with basic traveler information. There is no predetermined endpoint to the CBP's investigative work. Secondary screenings at borders could run from a few minutes to several hours, depending on how much the CBP wants to harvest.

The CBP materials indicate that as part of secondary inspections, CBP can search “pocket litter,” documents, and cellphones. The April 2012 presentation promises a “full cell dump, including #s, text messages, pictures, etc.” at certain airports.

Everything is passed on to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which then starts the uglier work of pushing certain travelers into becoming informants, using both carrots, sticks and, in some cases, visits to their homes. Immigration revocation threats are common. So is the promise of benefits. But in both cases, the FBI -- working with CBP info -- is using motivations it can't actually offer or revoke.

When potential informants are not U.S. citizens, they may be particularly vulnerable to pressure from the FBI. Indeed, the bureau is counting on people thinking that FBI involvement in immigration decisions is normal, the documents indicate. In reality, FBI agents are expressly forbidden from promising immigration benefits to potential informants or threatening deportation.

The agency apparently believes deceiving foreign citizens during the recruitment process causes zero damage.

“If subject is deemed ‘recruitable,’” the slides state, then a “series of overt interviews set into motion.” If the person is “not recruitable,” then “NO HARM. Subject believes that the interview is part of the immigration process.”

This is why these recruitment efforts work. The FBI is counting on the ignorance of visiting travelers to help it turn visitors into informants. A suspicionless detention in which several invasive questions are asked is considered to be "no harm," and the FBI will just move on to the next suggestion from CBP. And even if they think this might have been out of the ordinary, what are they going to do? Complain to another person in uniform and hope that the implied threats of deportation are bogus?

Filed Under: airports, cbp, fbi, informants, recruiting, tsa

NSA Agent Is Oh So Shy About Being Filmed/Questioned In Public

from the i-see-you dept

With all that's gone on with the NSA leaks, one thing has been made abundantly clear: the idea of operating in the world without having eyes on us or digging through our motives, is dead. The NSA, admitting it or not, has unilaterally decided that we don't deserve privacy and that our daily lives are an open book should they have any contrived reason to take a peek. Even members of Congress appear to be under such scrutiny.

Yet it appears that at least some of the folks that work in our version of the thinkpol don't take kindly to being examined and filmed in public.

The NSA sent someone bearing the nametag “Neal Z.” to the University of New Mexico’s Engineering and Science Career Fair today, in the hopes of recruiting young computer geniuses to help manage the yottabytes of data it is collecting about you. But instead of eager young applicants, Mr. Z. encountered University of New Mexico alumnus Andy Beale and student Sean Potter, who took the rare opportunity of being in the room with a genuine NSA agent to ask him about his employer’s illegal collection of metadata on all Americans. Mr. Z. did not like that one bit.

Should you be unable to see the video, the exchange is fairly polite, if persistent, from behind the camera. The NSA employee, on the other hand, is both combative and at one point grabs the interviewers phone. Prior to that, the employee repeats the discredited claim that the NSA does not collect intelligence on US citizens, which by now everyone knows is simply false. Then the name calling starts, followed by the attempt to grab the phone. The two interviewers were subsequently ejected from the building under the notion that they were causing a disturbance. The NSA employee was clearly unhappy about being videotaped and probed.

And it's easy to sympathize with him as a US citizen, since the organization he works for has done the same thing to American citizens. We're brothers of a kind, both having to endure an undue yet meticulous examination of our activities as we simply attempt to go about our lives, working and living less free than we were meant to be. That the irony appeared to be lost on our NSA friend isn't terribly surprising to me. The Ministries of Oceania are not known for their sense of humor, after all.

Filed Under: analyst, filming, nsa, public, questions, recruiting, students

Recruiting From Competitors Isn't Sabotage: Overstating The Uber/Lyft Fight

from the it's-competition dept

The Verge got a lot of attention yesterday for its story on "Uber's playbook for sabotaging Lyft." If you follow the space at all, you know that there have been stories making the rounds for months claiming that people working for Uber were scheduling competitors' rides and then cancelling them, thereby tying up competitors' systems. Uber has hit back saying that the reverse is actually true, and that Lyft has called up and cancelled Uber rides.

The Verge report actually doesn't focus on the whole "calling up and then cancelling rides," rather suggesting that this is a byproduct of what's really happening: a very aggressive campaign to recruit drivers from competing services:

But since at least mid-summer, some brand ambassadors in New York have been turning their talents against Lyft. Using Uber-provided iPhones and credit cards, the contractors hail rides, strike up conversations with their drivers, and attempt to sign them up before they arrive at their destination. (In other cities recruiters travel with "driver kits" that include iPhones and everything else a driver needs to get started on Uber; ambassadors were told New York State does not allow this.) Compensation varies, but contractors can earn a $750 commission for successfully recruiting a single new driver to Uber, according to a contractor.

As Lyft has gotten better at sniffing out recruiters and banning them from the service, Uber has been forced to alter its tactics. In the run-up to Lyft’s high-profile launch last month in New York City, Uber organized a "street team" to analyze Lyft’s expansion strategy. On July 9th, a marketing manager emailed a subset of the company’s contractors in New York city with a new opportunity. "We have a special ongoing project that we’re going to be rolling out next week and I wanted to get about 8–10 of you to help out," he wrote. "This is going to be completely based on your own personal hustle, as it’s not a typical onsite event. We are going to have you working on your own time helping us sign up Uber drivers, and there is HUGE commission opportunity for everyone you signup."

Here's the thing, though: I keep reading the story, and I don't see anything about "sabotage." It's in the Verge's headline and it's the word that a bunch of others have quoted as well. But basically the whole story is about aggressively recruiting Lyft drivers to drive for Uber. And, given that, I have to agree with Tim Lee that this seems like it's actually a really good thing for drivers. When there's competition for drivers, the drivers are likely to benefit.

The word "poach" often gets thrown around in cases like this, but a minute's thought should make it clear just how misguided this way of thinking is. Drivers are not wildlife on the Lyft reservation being stolen by unscrupulous hunters. They're human beings who have every right to change jobs if a new employer offers them a better deal. And the threat of being "poached" gives drivers more bargaining power with their current employers.

As we've discussed repeatedly, worker mobility is a fairly important aspect of an innovative economy. And, this isn't even a zero sum game as many drivers can (and do) drive for multiple such companies (I was recently in a cab where the guy had 4 phones going for different services).

While Uber won't come out and admit it, it does seem fairly likely that the "cancellations" are because an Uber recruiter requests a Lyft... and when the driver is assigned, realizes it's a driver that's already been pitched (the Verge article details an internal site that Uber set up to avoid re-pitching the same drivers). On Twitter, Uber's Travis Kalanick insists that every ride that an Uber recruiter requests is done with the intent to take the ride. However, when I asked why so many cancelled, he came back with the stat that 10% of all such rides cancel "for various reasons." But, of course, that's not a comparable stat. Those "reasons" could be anything from "changed plans" to "forgot something back home." When it's an Uber recruiter whose job is to take rides, the 10% cancellation number is meaningless. Kalanick wouldn't elaborate any further other than to reiterate the "intention" to take rides, which he insists is "everything." This aspect seems to be pushing the boundaries, though it's certainly not as bad as the claims of Uber doing this just to mess with Lyft. In fact, one could make the argument that this means Lyft drivers are less likely to get repeatedly hassled by Uber recruiters.

All that said, the thing that does concern me about the Verge story is something that almost no one seems to be focusing on: and it's the question about whether or not this is really the best thing for Uber strategically. A general rule I have concerning innovative companies is that if they're spending too much time worrying about their competitor, they're in for a major fall. Truly innovative companies focus on innovating first and generally aren't worried about competitors. Sure, they pay attention to what the competition is doing, but they believe in their own ability to out-innovate the competitor. When they start getting too focused on the competition, it's often a sign that they know they're not able to innovate fast enough any more.

It's not clear that this is what's happening with Uber, but it is a possibility. A perfectly reasonable alternative explanation is that Uber believes that the way it's going to best serve its customers is to have more of the best drivers working for it -- and recruiting from Lyft is the best way to do that. That seems like a perfectly viable explanation, and has little to do with "sabotage" but about putting out a better product. Either way, it's worth watching how this battle evolves, and how much of it is focused on offering the absolute best product vs. how much is about sabotaging a competitor. If it's more the former than the latter, then that seems like a good thing. So far, from the details of the story it seems like that's the case. While some may not fully agree with the tactics that the notoriously upfront and aggressive Uber are using, they don't seem to meet the claims of it being "sabotage."

Filed Under: aggressive tacitcs, competition, innovation, recruiting, ride sharing
Companies: lyft, uber

Sports Fans On Facebook May Violate NCAA Recruiting Rules?

from the oh-come-on dept

We've seen way too many situations where modern technology has shown how ridiculous certain rules and regulations are. The latest involves the NCAA apparently freaking out about students at certain colleges setting up Facebook groups pleading with high-profile high school sports students to attend their universities. According to the NCAA such "recruiting" violates its rules that forbid trying to influence student athletes over which college to attend. Because of this, the NCAA has pushed the universities to reign in students, to the point that NC State sent one of its students a cease-and-desist, threatening "further action" if he didn't take down a Facebook group trying to attract a student athlete. The folks who sent the cease-and-desist admit that it's ridiculous, but they had to do so due to the NCAA pressure. They're hoping that the NCAA will back down on this:

"I think nationally the NCAA needs to address further Facebook and how these groups play a part in recruiting. Is it realistic for us to be able to monitor them? What harm is a group like this causing? But as the legislation stands right now, this is the position we have to take."

Of course, this is the same NCAA that has tried to limit reporters from live-blogging sporting events (though, it's done little to enforce those rules), so it would come as no surprise if it chose to continue down this path.

Filed Under: ncaa, recruiting, social networks, sports

Would Udi Manber Work for MicroHoo?

from the trouble-in-the-HR-department dept

There may be nobody that knows the excitement of joining the hot-Internet-company-du jour better than Udi Manber: Chief Scientist at Yahoo, 1998-2002; CEO of A9.com, 2002-2006 (A9 was hot for a minute or two, right?); VP Engineering at Google, 2006-present. Udi's resume exemplifies the aspirations of many a talented computer scientist and/or software engineer, all hoping to work for the next bright star in the Silicon Valley sky. And Udi is probably just one of many who have successfully leapt from one hot, cool company to the next. The New York Times thoughtfully considers the consequences of this pattern in light of the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo merger.

It is indeed unlikely that a combination of these two giants would be very appealing to those finicky tech workers who are looking for the next big thing. However, it's been awhile since either Microsoft or Yahoo has been the next big thing, and yet neither have shown much trouble filling their ranks; clearly plenty of workers are content to have a well-paying job at a stable company. It is also probable that some employee attrition would follow on the heels of a completed merger. But this is not the case of start-up being acquired, where the start-up company's technology is often in the early stages of development and the buyer is paying as much for a smart, ambitious team as it is for the lines of code that have been written. In fact, part of Microsoft's plan may be to trim the fat beyond the 1,000 layoffs already announced by Yahoo, and some of those jumping ship may simply be sparing the efforts of the executioner's blade.

The human resources challenges associated with the evolution of a company from hot stuff to yesterday's news have already been priced in to this deal. Those challenges are certainly correlated with Yahoo's underperformance over the past few years and, subsequently, to the price of its stock. And Microsoft has no doubt considered how these challenges might continue or be aggravated by a merger; their offer reflects such considerations. Yahoo is a mature brand with a very large audience and, recruiting and retention problems notwithstanding, Microsoft believes that they can wring greater profits out of those assets than Yahoo's own management has been able to. Don't expect MicroHoo to become an exciting upstart that appeals to the likes of Udi, but don't expect that this fact will deter Microsoft from pressing forward with their plans.

Filed Under: hot companies, recruiting, udi manber
Companies: microsoft, yahoo