[kictanet] KICTANet Digest, Vol 166, Issue 8

[Adrian Teri]

Good day Mr Muite,

On the question of big brother, no one is fit or should have the say and/or
control of a population greater than all the Southern hemisphere + India >=
3 Billion people!

In the first place we have unquestionably learnt that polarising or things
that make us angry are the most engaging. The motivation/interests of
social media companies is to simply keep as many eyeballs, Monthly Active
Users (MAU's), glued to screens so they can push as many #ads.

 #FaceBook especially sucks at local content moderation. As indicated
earlier Kenya has 42 languages. Just imagine the size of teams that would
be required the whole of Africa? They lean to "Machine Learning" to solve
the problem which generally sucks as they want to maximize shareholder
value by having less number of employees. Scott Galloway has an excellent
presentation from 2017 illustrating this from "The Four" -
*https://youtu.be/GWBjUsmO-Lw?t=2234
<https://youtu.be/GWBjUsmO-Lw?t=2234>.* Staring @ 37:14

#FaceBook sucks at moderating in English. In Arabic, it's a disaster -
 *https://restofworld.org/2021/facebook-is-bad-at-moderating-in-english-in-arabic-its-a-disaster/
<https://restofworld.org/2021/facebook-is-bad-at-moderating-in-english-in-arabic-its-a-disaster/>*

I have read reports that attribute the magnitude of #Myanmar and now
#Ethiopia's mess to lack of content moderation -
*https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/25/business/ethiopia-violence-facebook-papers-cmd-intl/index.htm
<https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/25/business/ethiopia-violence-facebook-papers-cmd-intl/index.htm>*
l

FacaBook AI moderation sucks because moderation at scale is impossible
- *https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20211020/13270147784/facebook-ai-moderation-continues-to-suck-because-moderation-scale-is-impossible.shtml
<https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20211020/13270147784/facebook-ai-moderation-continues-to-suck-because-moderation-scale-is-impossible.shtml>*

Leave alone civil societies, can a gov'ts get data of it's own country? Now
that #FaceBook is on the war path using their arsenal of Copyright, Terms
of Service & Computer and Misuse Acts, they claim they want to prevent
another #Cambridge Analytica by quashing all research efforts even where
the user has permitted a plugin/extension in their own volition(It is
important to note that any data/metadata you add or is created in your
usage of many services is not your own!). Well, they lost that privilege
when they let them do it earlier.

An excellent Twitter Thread by Cory Doctorow -*
https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1374785763779375104?s=20
<https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1374785763779375104?s=20>*

The EFF has an excellent piece on questions to ask, what to demand of
content moderation and the U.S election -*
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/content-moderation-and-us-election-what-ask-what-demand
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/content-moderation-and-us-election-what-ask-what-demand>*

As seen in the recent #USA election will the #Algorithm be cut back for
safety during the Kenyan electioneering period next year?

I see only one solution. Null route or drop all packets to and from Social
sites that could care less at the eXchange points.

In fact start doing so from the New Year!

The cleaver/intelligent learn from the mistakes of others. Also, those who
cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

Yours Kindly,
Adrian

---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Benson Muite <benson_muite at emailplus.org>
> To: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> Cc:
> Bcc:
> Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2021 16:25:07 +0300
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Regulating hate speech and incitement to violence
> during elections in Kenya
> An interesting piece that raises the question of who should be assigned
> the role of Big Brother[1]?
>
> Part of the problem is that many local agencies have poor mechanisms of
> updating and alerting the public, for example through their own
> websites. Obtaining information through convenient social media
> platforms becomes the norm without any fallback references.
>
> This list is an example of a space for open constructive discussion
> under local control. More such spaces are needed.
>
> A critical and informed citizenry are the long term solution, but even
> with an informed citizenry, information overload makes propagation of
> fear, uncertainty and doubt easy.
>
> Attached image modified from[2] and available under licensi ya sanaa huru!
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(Nineteen_Eighty-Four)
> [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1984-Big-Brother.jpg
>
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>
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