Hate and Hope

New power

One of my favorite books of the past decade is “New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World--and How to Make It Work for You , by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms. It explores how the power of the crowd, aided by social media and leaders ready to embrace a new way of using power, has the potential to fundamentally redesign society’s systems and structures to meaningfully include and empower more people, including the most vulnerable. Most of us have seen it work for good in pro-democracy, gender, and climate justice movements, as well as in leading innovative businesses, just to mention a few. I still recommend and gift the book to friends and colleagues, but today I also encourage everyone to pay extra attention to the author's warnings that the same power can be used by those who stand for everything that we fear.

Weaponized and monetized hate

Hate is their business model, says Indian journalist Swati Chaturvedi in an interview with the Guardian newspaper this week, about the profits made in the social media and digital space. Leading companies have weaponized and monetized hate at the expense of social cohesion and democracy. She is interviewed as part of an article about #ShePersisted’s latest research which came out last week.

The same theme was picked up by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently. “We have started 2023 staring down the barrel of a confluence of challenges unlike any other in our lifetimes. Wars grind on. The climate crisis burns on. Extreme wealth and extreme poverty rage on. The gulf between the haves and have-nots is cleaving societies, countries, and our wider world.?Epic geopolitical divisions are undermining global solidarity and trust.” Strong words from Guterres as he presented his 7 priorities for 2023 on February the 6th . He then went on to highlight some areas of particular concern and, among other issues, spoke about how social media platforms use algorithms that amplify toxic ideas and funnel extremist views into the mainstream and how advertisers finance this business model. In addition, some platforms tolerate hate speech – the first step towards hate crimes. He called on everyone with influence on the spread of mis- and disinformation on the internet – governments, regulators, policymakers, technology companies, the media, and civil society to stop the hate and to set up strong guardrails. There must be accountability for language that causes harm.

Protecting minorities

Dr. Samuel Woolley is a writer, researcher, and professor whose work focuses on how new media tools get used for both freedom and control. His forthcoming book, “Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Age of Automation and Anonymity ” explores social media and emergent technology in-depth and details modern propaganda's inner workings. Dr. Wooley is clear that public forums, whether they resemble Facebook group pages, Twitter feeds, or some not yet-created digital space, should be more vigorously policed for both hate speech and information operations. It is not acceptable for social media firms or other technology companies to address computational propaganda on a case-by-case basis, responding seriously only to cases that garner major media attention. He is particularly keen to prevent targeted attacks and defamation campaigns against the most vulnerable and feels we must create regulations and policies that protect minority groups from online manipulation. New laws should make it more clearly illegal for social media firms to sell advertisements that target these groups with politically charged misinformation or disinformation. Mainstream social media platforms should provide safe spaces online for these groups and facilitate their day-to-day use by protecting and moderating them.

The Digital Services Act (DSA), approved by the EU last year, is a step in the right direction. The DSA sets clear obligations for digital service providers, such as social media or marketplaces, to tackle the spread of illegal content, online disinformation, and other societal risks. These requirements are proportionate to the size and risks platforms pose to society. The implementation of the DSA will be a very important space to watch. I can’t wait for the first big fines to be given.

Democracy, human development, and women’s rights are at stake.

I obviously applaud the primary focus on protecting the most vulnerable groups, but in our policy responses, public conversations, and media coverage, we also need to zoom out and look at the even more significant threats posed by the business models of digital service providers. Nothing less than democracy, human development, and women’s rights are at stake.

#ShePersisted works to address gendered disinformation against women in politics. They research digital harms, support women leaders to build digital resilience, and advocate for improved digital standards. Their latest research?#MonetizingMisogyny ?is scary reading and should be a wake-up call for all. I’m sharing here the first three paragraphs of their executive summary:

“Digital media was initially perceived as a welcome tool for liberation and democracy, yet it’s increasingly becoming a tool for repression and a weapon used against women in politics, activists, and journalists worldwide.

While social media companies have not invented sexism or authoritarianism, they have been providing illiberal actors new, exceptionally powerful tools to attack citizens and undermine human rights and democracy, further marginalizing those voices they find threatening.

As Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks noted, “misogyny and authoritarianism are not just common comorbidities but mutually reinforcing ills.” A well-funded, transnational movement has been at work during the last twenty years to backslide women’s rights and undermine democracy globally. Since women are on the frontlines of the fight to protect the most essential rights and liberal values in many countries, their voices represent a threat to authoritarians and illiberal actors everywhere. Therefore, weaponizing social media to silence them is one of the most effective ways to undermine those efforts and erode democratic institutions. Things are getting worse, as many of these authoritarian leaders and malign actors have taken advantage of major events such as the global COVID-19 pandemic to crush opponents and shrink the space available for democratic activism, while digital platforms are shirking their responsibilities for the situation they contributed to creating”.

Every time I read these paragraphs, chills run down my spine. I fear that I have been too dazzled by the good social media can do. That its presence in our modern life is too convenient and too practical to allow us to pay more than cursory attention to its ills. And at the same time, the truth about the enormous financial power and influence of the anti-democracy movements gets lost in other news. The same can be said about the roll-back on women’s rights, which was also mentioned in the UN Secretary-General’s 2023 priorities speech:

“Gender equality is both a fundamental human right and a solution to some of our greatest global challenges.?But half of humanity is held back by our time's most widespread human rights abuse. Gender discrimination is global, chronic, and pervasive, holding every country back.?And things are getting worse. We face intense pushback against the rights of women and girls. Women’s sexual and reproductive rights and legal protections are under threat. Gender equality is a question of power. ?With millennia of power behind it, the patriarchy is reasserting itself”.

As a perpetual optimist, I will continue to revel in moments of promise. I hope to see more girls, boys, women, and men shape their destinies through powerful social media-aided movements. New power still opens opportunities for global good. But I will also increasingly draw collective attention to the immense financial and regressive power of the patriarchy and anti-democracy movements that are aided by the harmful business models of digital service providers. This lethal cocktail can overpower even the most hopeful with hate.