Society and Culture

the fusion and fission of cultures i.e. local perceptions of a foreign film, lessons from overcoming language barriers, cultural implication of immigration in the EU

Internet Interview Racism Society and Culture Technology

UN Special Rapporteur Tendayi Achiume on Racial Discrimination in Emerging Digital Technologies: Annabelle Werner and Elizabeth Onibokun

written by thegeneration

E. Tendayi Achiume is a Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights at University of California, Los Angeles. She serves as the United Nations special rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

As we enter into the one year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have learned just how much of our society can be conducted in virtual landscapes. We keep up with our friends through endless scrolling on international social media platforms, we coordinate “zoom” calls with our colleagues across different time zones, and our children log into their classrooms from behind a screen: our virtual society is essentially intrinsic to our physical one. Yet, one could argue that the relationship between society and digital technology has always been heavily intertwined since the latter’s development, and in fact, the societal problems we see in our physical world are also manifested in and perpetuated by our online one.

In our interview with UN Special Rapeturer Tendayi Achiume, we were able to discuss such relationships between societal inequality and technology in covered in her 2020 thematic report on “Racial discrimination and emerging digital technologies: a human rights analysis”. Ultimately, we learned how different forms of racial discriminination appear “in the design and use of ‘‘ digital tools. In our brief interview, we not only gained an appreciation of the urgency and timeliness of Professor Achiume’s findings, but also began to understand the gravity of our virtual situation: not even our most advanced, “objective”, digital inventions can overcome historical legacies of social injustice.

Definitions and Examples of Techno-chauvinism and Technological Determinism

When discussing how societal problems are manifested in technology, Professor Achiume argues that we must be cognizant of the ills of techno-chauvinism. Techno-chauvinism is the idea that technology is the solution to everything, when in reality, some forms of digital technology can create more (or simply different) problems than before. If we make presumptions that technology will blanketly fix the issues that we cannot, Achiume claims that we will fail to critically investigate the ways that technology “reproduces human biases and perpetuates structural inequalities”. After all, the structures, designs, and functions of social media platforms and AI algorithms are shaped by the beliefs of those who create them.

The UN special rapporteur found that emerging digital technologies can directly perpetuate racial discrimintion. In the report, she discusses “digital redlining”, or “the creation and maintenance of technology practices that further entrench discriminatory practices against already marginalized groups’”. In Section III B 32, Achiume describes how Facebook used to have a function that would allow one to “narrow audiences” by providing the ability to filter Facebook users by “ethnic affinities” under a demographics category of its ad-targeting tool. Facebook by itself controls about a quarter of the market share for digital advertisements in the U.S., so this tool had a significant impact and resulted in the prevention of Black people from viewing housing advertisements. If we were to accept principles of techno-chauvinism and assume that technological tools will be ubiquitously advantageous, we would fail to see how problems of racial bias were created by this new tool. Techno-chauvinism shields digitals tools from critique and blinds us from seeing how racial discrimiantion can be ingrained in the structures of our social, political, and economic interactions online, including how these virtual inequalities can be actualized into very real harm in our physical lives.

It is also important to discuss the spaces in which these global networks are created. Digital technologies and social media platforms are mainly produced in a few, concentrated environments in the Global North, which directly or indirectly affect the product. Sillicon Valley, for example, is experiencing what has been called a “diversity crisis” and has had “a history of problems of discrimination, exclusion, and sexual harassment”. These findings prompt the question: Who is creating AI technology? And who is it being created for?

In an investigation of the effects of this lack of diversity, Achiume includes a 2019 study that reviewed 99 developers from around the world. It found that, “‘many of these algorithms were 10 to 100 times more likely to inaccurately identify a photograph of a black or East Asian face, compared with a white one. In searching a database to find a given face, most of them picked incorrect images among black women at significantly higher rates than they did among other demographics’”.

We can see how even the seemingly “neutral” AI systems are shaped by the lack of representation in the environments that they are created. The inequalities at various intersections of our social identities, such as race and gender, are then present in the technologies we produce. Thus, we cannot simply code away racial bias because technology can never be a completely “neutral” instrument: it is ultimately influenced by what it’s creators perceive, or rather, what they do not perceive. In fact, this problematic assumption that technology is objectively neutral, is codified in the term “technological determinism”.

Technological determinism, defined and discussed by Achiume, is the assumption that technology is somehow isolated and not influenced by social, political, or economic structures. This perspective is false. Our digital landscapes determine “everyday outcomes in employment, education, health care and criminal justice”, and will continue to facilitate harm unless we are able to isolate how society’s injustice manifests itself in our digital tools; a process that is only possible through the rejection of technological determinism.

Limitations of “Colorblindness”

The term “colorblind” is sprinkled liberally throughout texts, articles, and journals and while it traditionally had a positive connotation, Professor Achiume cautions against its use. She highlights the insidious effects of “colorblindness,” particularly when dealing with a world increasingly defined by technology and its perceived objectiveness. Achiume recognizes the fact that the idea of a colorblind world seems appealing. Who wouldn’t want to live in a world where a person is not judged by something as inconsequential as skin color?

But, the sad fact is that, “we live in a society which has been constructed on a racial basis.” Approaching issues such as racial discrimination in technology and AI programs without acknowledging the inherit systemic obstacles in this world does no one any favors. Achiume brings up the current COVID-19 pandemic and how black and brown communities have been disproportionately affected, in part, due to factors such as exclusion from healthcare systems and the overrepresentation of people of color in the social services. By stating that “the colorblind approach is not enough” she is calling for approaches that examine the racial and ethnic impact of policymaking that appear to be neutral. She asserts that it should not be about a blindness to difference but rather an engagement with how differences makes certain communities more vulnerable to exploitation, discrimination, and exclusion. In fact, she insightfully states that we don’t yet live in a world where taking a colorblind approach can lead us to justice but that it often sustains systems of injustice.

Importance of Public Awareness

To further expand on this theme of objectivity, Achiume coined the brilliant term “the veneer of neutrality” and this applies especially to the current design and use of emerging digital technologies. There is the widely-held belief that technology is completely impartial but it is in everyone’s best interests to shed these notions. There are people behind the creation of these programs who, whether consciously or subconsciously, perpetuate harmful stereotypes or prejudices.

One of the most terrifying manifestations of this is predictive policing, a phenomena seen around the world and contributes directly to over-policing of black and brown communities. Achiume highlights the transnational nature of these programs and that is not an issue seen only in the United States. For example, in the United Kingdom there is a predictive policing database intended to create profiles of those most likely to commit crime. A staggering number of 78% of black youth is represented despite the fact that when looking at the actual rates of violence, black youth are implicated only 20% of the time. She insists that one of the most urgent courses of action is public awareness, especially in terms of surveillance and predictive policing that exists around the world.

Even in Los Angeles, where many of us call home, the extent to which police surveillance exists is incredibly high. Professor Achiume spotlights the coalition Stop LAPD Spying whose name perfectly reflects their mission statement. They work hard to release reports that reflect the high levels of racialized surveillance of the LA Police Department. The large gap of awareness in the public is a huge wall to climb and Achiume believes this is why the devastating murder of George Floyd ignited the world in the way it did. Public awareness is truly the first step towards seeing action and one of the goals of her report is to raise the all-important point that this issue needs to be on national agendas. In a perfectly worded conclusion she declares that “you don’t get change if you have societies that are unaware of the depth and the nature of a problem. These new forms of surveillance disproportionately affect black and brown communities, whom are more subject to over-policing and discrimination than their white counterparts which is reflected in the makeup of prison populations that unfairly represent minorities to an absurd degree. Relating back to Professor Achiume, the LAPD’s police surveillance tactics are said to be completely objective but as discussed with the aforementioned veneer of neutrality, technology can never be truly “neutral”. Hence the need for caution, awareness, and action.

Reflection

As the world continues to grow more globalized, criticizing the unintended consequences of emerging technology can lead to the implementation of systems that are actually effective and useful. We must recognize how the location of the center of development for digital technologies in the Global North has resulted in both direct and indirect perpetuations of racial bias on the design and use of the tools produced. Unabated trust in our new virtual world, with no caution to how it could reflect racial bias in our physical one, will simply perpetuate such harm.

Dismantling principles such as techno-chauvinism, technological determinism, and colorblindness will help us understand how these tools discriminate along racial and gendered lines, such as heightened surveillance of certain communities. The growth of technology can be a wonderful thing but it also has the potential to be incredibly dangerous. In an increasingly interconnected world, nothing is truly as isolated as it seems. An innovation in Silicon Valley can have reverberations throughout the world. It is best that with the knowledge provided we work hard to create digital technologies that don’t perpetuate the problems and prejudices we face in the real world.

March 11, 2021 0 comment

Economics Europe Globalization Society and Culture The International Economy

So you want to be European? A challenge to the perceived success of the European model over the U.S. model in leftist discourse.

written by Katie Jones

Imagine life in Switzerland: an idyllic alpine country in which gun ownership is legalized, immigration and multilateralism are frowned upon, healthcare is privatized and costly, and military service is compulsory. Staunchly independent and conservative, Switzerland is a right wing paradise. Yet, it is often liberal politicians and voters that yearn for a more European America, citing the success of “democratic socialism” in European societies. However, given the example of Switzerland, albeit extreme, the notion that Europe is necessarily “socialist,” and the success of existing “socialist” policies, should be challenged.

Bernie Sanders, former presidential candidate and arguably the most celebrated socialist in America, stated that the future of American democratic socialism “should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway.” The Danish Prime Minister retorted that Denmark “is far from a planned a socialist economy,” and “it is a market economy.” The dissonance here relates to two different definitions of the word socialism. Socialism can connote a system of increased government administration of public goods, rather than private sector administration of public goods, as well as a robust social safety net. Infrequently, socialism can be used to refer to communism, a system of complete government control over the economy. This article will contend with the former, focusing on socialism as European government intervention in the market and social services.

When it comes to economic policy, the Nordic countries of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, actually have greater economic freedom than the United States and are in this respect even more market driven or “capitalist” economies. A study by JP Morgan Chase, using data from the World Bank, found that on average these nations have a greater degree of business freedom. Greater business freedom means these economies protect property rights more aggressively, exercise less control over private enterprise, allow for greater concentration in the banking sector, and distribute a smaller share of total earnings to workers than the U.S.. As well, the Nordics have minimal corporate taxation and no wealth taxes. The U.S. in comparison boasted the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, 40%, prior to the 2017 Trump tax cut, at which point the corporate tax rate was slashed to 21%, still above the European average. The reputation of high taxes in Nordic countries comes from the high value added taxes (VAT), similar to sales taxes, which are in their nature, regressive taxes. VATs disproportionately impact the lower and middle classes because these groups spend a higher proportion of their income than the upper class does. Thereby, it is the lower and middle classes which finance the generous social safety nets present in these countries. The essential takeaway here is that operation of the economy is extremely market friendly, and social benefits are being paid for not by the wealthy or corporations, but by their beneficiaries.

Yet these bountiful social safety nets, rather than actual economic policy, are generally what politicians and everyday people mean when they refer to European socialism. It is undeniable that in the Nordic countries, as well as Europe more generally, there are greater government transfers as a share of GDP. This takes the form of free or low-cost college, healthcare, child care and favorable unemployment benefits. However, these policies come at a cost. Not only are they financed primarily by the middle class as aforementioned, but these social programs are sometimes inefficient or even ineffective in comparison to alternatives.

For example, the European healthcare system, enviable for it’s widespread accessibility, is unfortunately often not the same quality or even necessarily always more cost effective than the U.S.. The healthcare policies in Europe range from country to country, from nationalized systems to health care mandates similar to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). However, the perception of healthcare as “free” is a fallacy across the board. In Sweden, where healthcare is significantly nationalized, average out-of -pocket cost is 15%, the U.S. average in contrast is 11%. In other European nations, such as the Netherlands, which have mandates similar to the ACA, they end up paying less than nationalized systems, 11% out of pocket as well. Moreover, the problem with single payer healthcare, especially in larger and more diverse economies, is that the health systems do not reach a satisfactory quality, so citizens end up bearing a double burden of paying for the nationalized system through taxation and private healthcare when they get sick. In France for instance, 95% of the population has private insurance to help pay the deductibles and copayments of the public system. In the UK, 11% of citizens have private insurance in addition to public insurance in order to gain faster access to specialists and elective procedures such as hip replacements. Commendably, nearly all European countries provide some form of universal basic coverage, yet to say a “medicare for all” system reflects the European model is inaccurate.

European universities present a similar story. While they are more authentically “free” than healthcare, they sometimes can not provide the same quality of education or versatility of degree as an American university. American universities’ high tuition (though arguably exorbitant), allows them the financial resources to attract the best faculty, research, technology, and top students from around the globe. Eight of the ten best universities in the world according to 2021 U.S. News’ edition of Best Global Universities, are in the United States. The London-based Times Higher Education, placed 16 of the World’s top 25 universities in America and the Shanghai-based Academic Ranking of World Universities placed 18 of the top 25 universities in America. The high costs of healthcare and education in the United States, while admittedly having distinct disadvantages, make U.S. institutions world class.

And can the United States afford these costs? Yes. The American middle class is comparatively richer than the European middle class. Even after the significant costs paid in the United States for healthcare, education, child care, etc. the average disposable income of Americans is much higher than Europeans. In fact, the United States has the highest average disposable income of any OECD country. The United States is also among the most highly ranked when it comes to housing and employment opportunities, not to mention more consistent and robust GDP growth, while Europe lags with stalling competitiveness.

Europe could possibly improve GDP growth and international competitiveness through decreasing state spending and encouraging the private sector; the direct antithesis to their “socialist” reputation. Sweden has successfully done this before. In the period the 1970s to the 1990s, Sweden had a much more “socialized” economy. During these years the country’s growth lagged far behind most other OECD countries. In 1990 and 1991, Sweden introduced tax cuts and business incentives to boast the economy, which was highly effective and allowed for the regionally impressive growth and economic strength that is present today. However in this period inequality in Sweden also rose significantly, the highest percentage growth in inequality in the world at the time, yet it was matched by a boast in the overall economy. This is not to say that cutting social programs and taxes will always increase productivity and growth, or that the increase in growth will be distributed fairly, but simply that there is a trade off with growth and productivity on one side and government social benefits on the other. Each country must decide where they feel comfortable within this trade off and what sacrifices they are willing to make. It seems that Americans want the lifestyle of southern Europe, the social benefits of northern Europe, at the level of prosperity of the United States, which is unrealistic.

However even if the U.S. wanted to accept the bargain of low growth for benefits, many European countries are able to maintain these systems based on historical and institutional reasons that would not apply to the United States. Europeans are capable of having expensive social programs in part because of their reliance on American defense spending. As of 2017, the United States contributes a greater proportion of GDP to NATO than any other country at 3.3%. 23 of the 28 countries in NATO fail to meet even the 2% of GDP goal. Many former presidents inducing George W. Bush and Barack Obama took issue with this, with Obama stating “Free riders aggravate me.” As well the comparatively smaller size of European countries allows for more centralized and efficient government distribution of benefits. Not to mention some countries, like Norway, have become very wealthy through natural resource extraction.

All of this is not to reflect a personal political agenda, in fact quite the opposite. I do not advocate for cutting social safety nets, but it must be acknowledged that these safety nets, aside from their many quality of life benefits, often fuel costly and inefficient bureaucracies and hurt international competitiveness. It is even more important to remember that the U.S. is not, and never will be, Europe. We shouldn’t strive to blindly emulate an imperfect system especially in a country facing such different conditions.

Additional Discussion….

A quick digression to social and political issues; it is often argued that Europe’s political spectrum is shifted further to the left than the U.S.. However, on social issues such as the legalization of gay marriage many European nations lagged behind the U.S.. Germany didn’t legalize gay marriage until 2017, and gay marriage is still illegal in large European countries such as Italy and Greece. Abortion similarly is not universally accessible in Europe, and some countries have only just recently legalized it. Ireland, a county with a strong religious tradition, most notably legalized abortion in 2018.

Politically, Europe has suffered from the same issues with right wing populism and xenophobia as the U.S.. From the infamous Brexit protest vote, to the rise of right wing governments in Austria, Italy, and other large countries, attitudes in Europe have been increasingly conservative. The illusion that the far left holds control in Europe may be attributable to many countries’ parliamentary systems giving fringe political parties a voice. Overall, Europe has a diverse array of political landscapes from country to country and region to region. Just like the U.S., Europe as a monolith cannot be characterized as necessarily liberal or conservative.

February 17, 2021 0 comment

Featured Middle East Populism Society and Culture Youth

A Generation Retrospective: The Arab Spring

written by Grayson Peters

The Generation first launched in January 2010, over a decade ago. Over the past ten years, our articles have followed world events from the outbreak of the Occupy Wall Street protests and the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, to the Mexican War on Drugs, Edward Snowden’s leaks about NSA surveillance, the outbreak of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, the Syrian Civil War and refugee crisis, and the advent of the Trump era.

But the Arab Spring holds a special place in The Generation’s memory.

We had just started writing when mass protests threatened the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Before regime change occurred, we argued, in keeping with the naiveté of the era, that “a plan to oust leader Muammar Gaddafi while preventing a potential coup by terrorist organizations seems a step in the right direction.” When Gaddafi was killed by opposition forces, we optimistically described the event as Libya “enter[ing] a new era,” greeted by the Libyan people in a “spirit of celebration.” We, like many other international observers during the Arab Spring, were caught up in the giddiness and seemingly endless potential of the moment.

We were even more enthused by the parallel outbreak of mass demonstrations in Mubarak’s Egypt. In 2011, we published personal narratives from an Egyptian-American immigrant student whose family proudly took part in the protests and a fourth-year student studying abroad at the American University in Cairo amidst the unrest who contemplated the potential boons and dangers of the regime transition after Mubarak’s ouster.

By 2012, we reflected more cautiously on Egypt’s unclear future. We noted that the underlying socio-economic causes of the initial unrest had been left unresolved by the change in leadership and that the ruling Military Council continued to resist a complete transition to civilian self-rule. Egypt’s street children, who had turned to the streets with their countrymen in protest of their poverty and marginalization, still suffered repression, denial of government services, and exclusion from the public sphere. Still, hope remained that Egypt’s newfound revolutionary “pride, as well as the memory of apathy, [would] sustain Egypt through a long, complicated and sometimes controversial transitional process.”

Since 2011, neither Libya nor Egypt has democratized, as many hoped that they would. Libya today is paralyzed by civil war. In Egypt, Abdel al-Sisi, who removed his predecessor Mohammad Morsi as president of Egypt by military coup in 2013, remains atop an authoritarian regime. The initial exuberance of the protesters and sympathetic Western observers has faded into cynicism.

What happened?

In Libya, Gaddafi was successfully pushed out of power by mass unrest and violence, but not by a unified political movement that could step into the power vacuum and restore a semblance of order. Armed militias, weak state institutions, and a fractured national identity did not bode well for a peaceful and orderly transition to democracy. This was especially true given the fraught political situation at the time — Gaddafi was not removed peacefully, but instead through a bloody civil war in which opposition forces received NATO backing. In the absence of a single post-Gaddafi movement or group with a wide-ranging mandate, the General National Council, the Libyan transitional government which lasted for only two years, failed to sufficiently legitimize itself and tamp down on disorder. Today, Libya is a war-torn proxy battleground for regional powers including the United State, Turkey, Russia, the UAE and Qatar, each intervening to protect their own economic and strategic interests.

Egypt’s revolution died in 2013, when Sisi’s military coup ousted Morsi and thwarted the country’s ongoing democratic transition. Morsi, Mubarak’s successor, was confronted in 2013 with mass protests accusing him of authoritarianism and Islamism, contrary to the Egyptian peoples’ desire for secular democracy. After Morsi failed to quell these protests, Sisi stepped in, removed Morsi from power, and suspended the Egyptian constitution. Why did this happen? Despite the population’s aspirations for Western-style democracy, Egypt lacked a political tradition of democracy, which severely hampered its ability to realize democratic government. Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood dominated electoral politics, which caused non-Islamists to distrust the vote. The Egyptian state was so accustomed to authoritarian governance that each successive regime similarly repressed its opposition by, for example, brutalizing peaceful protesters, harassing the media, and purging judges. Ultimately, many Egyptians became disillusioned with the promise of democracy, finding themselves angered by a political process which went through the shallow motions of democratic elections and politics but was deeply tainted by authoritarian political culture. Today, Sisi continues to rule as Egypt’s dictator.

Our writers were not wrong when they described and embodied the Arab Spring’s hope for peaceful revolution across the Middle East. Unfortunately, they had simply not yet seen events play out. Despite the initial success of the Arab revolutions, most were crushed by dictators or, after toppling one autocratic regime, saw the rise of a new autocrat or the outbreak of ruinous civil disorder. Only one country, Tunisia, managed to steer a course from dictatorship to healthy democracy.

Despite its unrealized promise, the Arab Spring was a defining moment in modern political history. Thousands of young people rose up spontaneously to demand an end to corruption and dictatorship, putting their bodies on the line in the hope of a better tomorrow. And as they marched for their rights, we were inspired by their passion and conviction.

In many ways, The Generation found its voice covering the Arab Spring. We saw firsthand that when young people speak, the world listens. And even though the world remains beset with problems, we maintain that writing about those problems is an act of optimism. Our generation isn’t resigned to the world as it is. We’re eager to make a better world real.

November 22, 2020 5 comments

Featured Freedom of Speech Globalization Human Rights Internet Journalism Society and Culture Technology

Social Media, Protest, and the Freedom of Speech

written by Annabelle Werner

This article is the fourth of five pieces from our summer series for 2020. The theme this summer is “Challenging Narratives.” In the coming days and weeks, The Generation will publish more articles where our writers challenge various notions to provide new and different perspectives on the debates and events shaping your world.

State violence, racial protest, and debates on the freedom of speech are not novel phenomena, but with the advent of social media and its global proliferation, 2020 especially has witnessed a fundamental change in how citizens criticize their government and conduct political protest. In
order for citizens to actualize their fundamental rights in the 21st century, one must navigate the complex relationship between free speech, democratic institutions, and the broadcasting power of social networks. From the Arab Spring a decade ago to the Belarusian election and George Floyd protests of this summer, social media platforms have democratized the ability to rapidly spread information about injustice to millions. Yet as these platforms become increasingly inseparable from our lives, online spaces have become battlegrounds between governments and protesters, and between information and misinformation. Now, the private companies who created these virtual domains must take on a balancing act that was previously reserved for states: protecting the freedom of speech while maintaining public safety. The complication with this role shift is that as international corporations, they must balance many countries’ cultural norms regarding the freedom of speech. To what extent will individual domestic laws be able to influence private, global platforms? In addition, social media companies have the task of remaining politically neutral while protecting election security. They are responsible for codifying checks on their own industry which inherently profits off of scandalous, viral information. The U.S. has seen the influence of online conspiracy theories increase from the 2016 election until now, demonstrating that what goes on in online chat rooms can have effects in the physical world. Conspiracy theories, inflammatory accusations by state leaders, hate speech, and calls for revolutions all violate some sort of public order in physical space, so how will social media platforms design cyber policies that will actualize people’s right to speech while protecting public order? Overall, because social platforms have become whistles for injustice and democratic tools for political organizing, social media companies must develop social media policy that helps users to actualize these freedoms online while fighting against misinformation and hatred that could pose as threats to our democracies.

Social media has catalyzed social and political movements since the Arab Spring in 2011. A viral video filmed by a common bystander ignited this powerful and paradigm altering movement. Mohamed Bouazizi was a 26-year-old fruit vendor who lit himself on fire in front of a government building after refusing to pay a police bribe. He had been unable to find work as a lawyer due to his involvement in the opposition Progressive Democratic Party, and he publicly committed suicide in protest of police harassment and President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s regime. Bouazizi’s death and his funeral were both filmed and sparked mass protests across Tunisia; President Ben Ali fled the country after a 23 year long reign four days after Bouazizi’s funeral. Like dominos, protests erupted across Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, all objecting to autocratic regimes. Social media created the ability for common citizens, especially young people, to collect and share evidence of state brutality. This technology has served as a system for fact checking government propaganda and has allowed opposition movements of repressive regimes to quickly galvanize and organize people in real life. While the results of the Arab Spring did not result in the “political reform and social justice” that was hoped for (Tunisia was the only nation that gained substantial changes in the form of a new constitution), technology was intrinsic to sparking these revolutionary movements and defining a new, 21st century method of actualizing one’s right to speak and assemble.

More recent examples of how social media has empowered everyday people and helped corroborate state brutality can be found in Lebanon and Belarus. In Lebanon, the government’s handling of the harrowing August 4th explosion in Beirut’s port, in addition to existing outrage over the governmental fiscal policy decisions during the nation’s grim economic recession, has ignited protest around the country. Videos of the explosion were disseminated widely across global news, and soon after, videos of excessive uses of force such as the use of tear gas on peaceful protesters began circulating on social media. According to Human Rights Watch, researchers “observed security forces fire a tear gas canister directly at a protester’s head, in violation of international standards, severely injuring him.” A video of the aftermath of that event where the man is being treated for his injuries was posted on Twitter and currently has 119,000 views. In Belarus, protests have broken out after attacks on members of the opposition party and the corruption of the sitting president. Aisha Jung, Amnesty International’s Senior Campaigner on Belarus, said:

“The people who have gathered to denounce the elimination of opposition presidential candidates from the election list have every right to take to the streets…Protesters claim that the sole reason Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s political opponents have been purged from the campaign is so that he can seek a sixth consecutive term as President, effectively unopposed.”

Peaceful protestors are now camped out in front of the Minsk parliament building in what is known as Independence Square. Anyone in the world with access to Twitter can be witness to these powerful moments; they can see the overwhelming crowd from a bird’s eye view and hear the ringing echo of thousands of voices bounce off the buildings. Yet, one can also find graphic videos of unnecessary and excessive force on peaceful Belarusian protesters in the media. These videos and images serve as evidence of state violence, dispel propaganda, and have captured the world’s attention.

One final example of social media’s role in galvanizing protests includes the recent demonstrations for racial justice across the United States which may be the largest social movement in U.S. history. Everyday people of all races and backgrounds, in addition to celebrities, sports teams, and corporations, have been contributing their support for the Black Lives Matter Global Network. The protests were ignited by the George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police on May 25th. 17-year-old Darnella Frazier captured the shocking image of the killing, which showed one officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck as he begged for his life while three other police officers looked distantly on. In America, protests over police brutality and racism have been catalyzed in the past by similar videos taken by bystanders. The Rodney King Riots of 1992 erupted after four Los Angeles policemen were acquitted for a brutal beating of Rodney King, a violent act caught on camera that made national and global news. Since then, technology has become heavily integrated into our lives and vastly accessible to many, so now more than ever the everyday citizen has the ability to record chaotic and events that could later be used to inform others or corroborate eyewitness accounts.

In an analysis of these events, one can view social media and technology as a widely accessible, democratic outlet where nearly anyone can exercise their human right to the freedom of expression. The people can share their voices, experiences, and opinions in ways that can check political regimes. But social media platforms are also private companies that, especially after the 2016 U.S. election, are reviewing their policies and investigating how they will balance the. universal right to free speech and the need to maintain public safety as well as stopping the spread of maliciously false information that could lead to real life disasters and threaten civic
institutions.

In 2016, a bizarre example of how fake social media accounts and conspiracy theories could develop real consequences arose. Crazed rumors about presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s connection to a child sex trafficking ring hidden in a Washington D.C. pizza parlor spread on social media. Bot accounts, which are accounts that “automatically create tweets without direct human oversight”, helped to share and promote information on what became known as “Pizzagate” along with radical online “personalities” like conservative radio host Alex Jones. Edgar Welch, a believer of such theories, showed up to the supposed center of this satanic ring, Comet Ping Pong Pizza, with a “Colt AR-15 assault rifle, a .38-caliber Colt revolver and a folding knife, [and] fired his gun two or three times.” No one was injured, but this strange incident serves as an example of how fake media accounts created for the purposes of smearing a political figure online can have real and violent consequences. More recently, a group founded on similar beliefs to “Pizzagate” called QAnon has amassed followers on mainstream platforms. The Washington Post defines QAnon’s beliefs as

“… a concoction of allegations against Democratic politicians, celebrities and supposed members of a ‘deep state’ government bureaucracy, against whom Trump is seen as waging a valiant battle. Purported pedophilia rings are central to the conspiracy theory, along with Satanism and secret judicial proceedings’. QAnon believers await the ‘Great Awakening,’ or the moment the general public realizes the conspiracy exists, and the ‘Storm,’ when thousands of wrongdoers face justice.”

Despite being labeled a domestic terror threat by the FBI, Facebook only began removing QAnon platforms in August of 2020; this included 790 groups and 440 pages. Conspiracy theorists with fringe opinions spread false information to promote their own interests, interests defined by a system where the more followers one has, the more money one stands to make from advertising deals. For example, Alex Jones was “permanently suspended” from Twitter in 2018 on the grounds that his tweets violated Twitter’s community guidelines against abusive behavior which states “you may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. We consider abusive behavior an attempt to harass, intimidate, or silence someone else’s voice.” Recently in 2020, Alex Jones and his “InfoWars” app were banned from the Google Play store after spreading false information about the coronavirus; Jones also “lost an appeal in a defamation case about his claims related to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting” and racked up nearly $150,000 total in legal fees before the trial. Yet, cases where platforms that are actually taken down are the exception, and usually after significant harm has done. The spread of maliciously false information has terrible consequences in reality, especially during a pandemic that requires a collective effort and understanding which is constantly undermined by this misinformation complex.

The benefit of social media is that a single person has the potential to reach millions of people at once, but that also serves as a complication in the balancing act between protecting one’s right to self-expression and ensuring public safety. In America, hateful or inflammatory speech is usually thought of as “lawful but awful” and protected as long as it is not meant to incite imminent violence. But social media platforms span across many nations, all with differing regulations regarding one’s speech. An NPR podcast about free speech and social media discussed how hate speech is not protected in Europe and the EU has developed a solution of writing their guidelines into the terms of service that is signed by users of their regions; they warn platforms of passing restrictive laws against them if these rules are not factored in, while the Trump administration is also threatening legislative action if platforms do not conform to their own standards. This creates a tension unique to an international platform that has to balance the various cultural norms regarding free speech laws.

Another debate influencing free speech online is the one of the major components of Trump’s platform known as “Fake News” which is the idea that traditional media coverage and social media algorithms discriminate against conservative viewpoints. Despite this pervasive allegation from the Right, there has been no evidence to substantiate this claim. In one study, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the National University of Singapore debunked this assertion of online conservative bias in their work “The Ideological Landscape of Twitter: Comparing the Production versus Consumption of Information on the Platform” where they found that “while partisan opinion leaders are certainly polarized, centrist or non-political voices are much more likely to produce the most visible information on the platform”. Online platforms are methods where both politicians and citizens of many countries can actualize their freedom of expression, but the struggle between governments and these private companies over algorithms and guidelines will only continue as these platforms age and grow.

Finally, other corporations are also weighing in on the issue as Coca Cola, Target and other major companies have recently limited or stopped advertising on Facebook in order to push Facebook to codify new rules regarding hate speech. This debate over the role of the platform in protecting the public order has not only been reactivated by false information about the COVID- 19 pandemic, but about the validity of the U.S. 2020 presidential election as well. Twitter has tacked two disclaimers on President Trump’s tweets this past year about voter fraud and the validity of US elections as well as a tweet “implying [that] protesters in Minneapolis could be shot.” A key factor in this debate over expression on online platforms involves the profile of the speaker. Should public figures with the ability to reach so many, compounded by the legitimacy of their position, have different standards of what they can say on social media than the average person?

Social media has equipped the everyday person with the ability to document injustice and corroborate their experience with evidence. It has catalyzed protests against racial injustice and state brutality in the United States, facilitating one of the largest social movements the world has seen. It has been utilized to ignite revolutions and check autocratic regimes. But social media platforms must practice a balancing act. They must protect the public against false information spread with malicious intent – like defamatory rumors about a political figure spread by an opposition party or hostile government – while also confronting structural incentives that encourage peddlers of misinformation to make millions by circulating hateful conspiracy theories. But who has the right to determine what is a lawful expression of one’s opinion and what are lies intended to incite violence? We know that social media has the power to stir revolutions and instigate social movements. Which movements should be allowed to grow at the risk of violating public order? We also know that social media has the power to make fringe opinions or conspiracies appear to be mainstream understandings. How will companies protect free expression and public safety? Should widely followed accounts of public figures be held to different standards of the acceptability of what they share? Ultimately, this election year will help define this gray area as private social media platforms write new cyber policies to govern virtual communities that have become inseparable from how we exercise our right to expression and protest in our physical ones.

October 27, 2020 0 comment

National Security Russia Society and Culture Technology United States

A Discussion With Dr. Fiona Hill on the Role Social Media Plays in Russian Meddling in U.S. Democracy

written by Zachary Durkee

Dr. Fiona Hill is a former official at the U.S. National Security Council specializing in Russian and European affairs. She was a lead witness in the November 2019 House hearings regarding the impeachment of President Trump. She currently serves as a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution.

On October 6th, I and Taylor Fairless had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Fiona Hill. My angle of the interview focused on engaging her expertise to explore the role that social media plays in Russian meddling in the U.S. electoral process. My question centered on the challenge of how the United States can effectively thwart Russian disinformation on social media when many argue that they simply exploit vulnerabilities inherent to the platforms themselves. Dr. Hill agreed with this assessment, which makes it an issue she believes we will be grappling with for “some time to come.”

In a recent article where I questioned if social media can undermine democracy, I broadly noted that these vulnerabilities included their content curation algorithms, targeted digital advertising, and much of the toxic psychology that guides engagement on them. These varying facets enable foreign actors like Russia to engineer content that compounds polarization and saturates feeds with misleading or false information. Facebook estimates that Russian actors managed to generate 80,000 posts that reached nearly 126 million people over the span of two years in the United States.

Information has always been a blessing and curse

Dr. Hill noted that information, regardless of the way it is delivered, has always been susceptible to deception, falsehoods, and lies. She argues that these are issues that are part of human nature. “Humans have always had a propensity for spreading rumors.” In preliterate times, this occurred via word-of-mouth and town criers, then pamphlets, print news, and eventually the digital realm. To her, this dynamic is simply part of a larger information commons, making it unsurprising that the same phenomena that we have seen over the sweep of history are now playing out on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms.

Dr. Hill believes the main difference is that social media platforms are “speeding up” the personal interactions that we have as human beings. Indeed, much of this information and interaction is distributed through highly sophisticated algorithms and is instantly engaged with by millions of people each day. Furthermore, no single person receives the same information experience. Each person is curated content that reflects what these platforms and actors believe an individual will be receptive to. This is what can make deception, falsehoods, and lies become so effective and formidable in the digital realm.

I stated before that the advent of targeted digital advertising enables actors, malicious or not, to engineer and formulate content that it believes their targeted audience would likely react and engage with. In 2018, the House Intelligence Committee released 3,500 Russian Facebook ads that were designed to target and polarize specific portions of the population. In some cases, Russian-owned pages created and promoted political rallies where they hoped people would violently clash. Russia’s sophisticated and broad utilization of data-centered advertising demonstrates the dystopian implication social media can have on the political process when users are reduced to data points for sale.

The Path Forward

Dr. Hill believes that self-regulation is the most practical way to thwart Russian disinformation on these platforms. She makes it clear to acknowledge the flip-side of social media, stating that the “leveling out and leveling up” of information has enabled more people than ever to have access to critical, informative information. Her reasoning for self-regulation is that a draconian, heavy-handed government approach to regulating these highly complicated platforms runs the risk of squashing free speech. “We thrive on free speech, free engagement, and freedom of assembly,” which increasingly takes place on the internet and these platforms within our societies.

Considering this, disinformation is something we will have to accept and grapple with for some time. “We will have to be creative in how we handle it for the foreseeable future because what is a strength is also often a vulnerability,” Dr. Hill says. She argues that this balancing act will largely rely on self-regulation and creating close working partnerships with the government, the private sector, and the entirety of society. “We ourselves as consumers and users of the platforms […] have to also be aware that part of the responsibility is ours to be more careful of the information that we propagate, verify, and cross-reference.” She concludes: “we have to be active consumers, not just passive recipients of information.”

October 8, 2020 1 comment

Society and Culture Technology United States

Can Social Media Undermine Democracy?

written by Zachary Durkee

Ten years ago, optimism surrounding the internet ran high. So much so that then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touted its decentralizing force as a potential catalyst for advancing democracy around the world. At the time, pundits even looked across the Middle East and described many of the Arab Spring uprisings as a “Facebook Revolution”.

This is because information is a valuable commodity, which is why autocrats around the world work so hard to repress, control, and manipulate it. Democracies rely on the free flow of it to thrive because individuals require access to it to be informed stakeholders in any political process. It is no surprise then that people held such rosy sentiments on what the future of the internet could hold.

Ten years onwards and the internet has been put into the hands of over half the world. 1 out of 7 people even have a Facebook account. Unfortunately, anyone can look out across the world today and see that optimism has largely dissipated. In fact, the reality people face today is what happens when that liberating stream of information becomes so ubiquitous and distorted that it becomes a detriment to democracy itself?

Grappling with this question requires a close look at social media, a product that has reshaped almost every industry and given rise to complete new ones. Today it is the place where hundreds of millions get their news, express their opinions, and create virtually anything.

Consequently, the firms who own these platforms have become some of the largest and richest on the planet. Scrutiny surrounding antitrust, privacy, the value of someone’s personal data, and the potential negative impact platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have on an individual’s mental health have become commonplace in 2020. These are issues tough to grapple with, largely because there is no clear precedent to draw upon.

With the introduction of these new realities comes a consequential question: can social media undermine democracy? The 2016 United States Presidential election provides the first historical lens to analyze this question under because of the sweeping utilization of it in the electoral process, as well as the fact that it was the first election in which these platforms had grown to such important relevance in the daily lives of people.

Although social media existed long before 2016, the proliferation and adoption of the smartphone had, by 2016, resembled levels we see today. At the beginning of 2012, only 39% of US adults owned a smartphone compared to 75% by election day in 2016. Between that same amount of time, digital campaign spending is estimated to have increased by 789%.

The facts surrounding 2016 are also clear: an American geopolitical adversary used disinformation, propelled by social media, to sow and compound division within the American political environment preceding a national election. Facebook estimates that Russian actors managed to create 80,000 posts that reached nearly 126 million people over the span of two years in the United States.

What Russia did was not unique or isolated but goes to the heart of how social media can ultimately serve the malicious purpose of undermining democracy. Their disinformation campaign simply exploited existing vulnerabilities inherent to platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. These include their algorithms, targeted advertising, and much of the toxic psychology that guides engagement on them.

The Echo Chamber

An unsavory consequence of social media becoming such a large forum for political discourse is that the core algorithms which keep users coming back tend to lock people into echo chambers. When that is applied to politics, it harms civil discourse and diminishes one’s appetite for compromise, both of which are central tenets of democracy. Eli Pariser, CEO of Upworthy and author of The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You, told NPR in a 2016 interview that “what most algorithms are trying to do is to increase engagement, increase the amount of attention you’re spending on that platform,” which means that “increasingly you end up not seeing what people who think differently see and in fact not even knowing that it exists.”

In other words, it is a personal user experience built with precision accuracy. The algorithms are engineered to learn what you like, what you want, and what your comfort zone is to curate content that it predicts will keep you coming back. People are then exposed more to what they feel rather than diverse, objective information that educates, informs, and challenges their predispositions. It is a genius business model with negative consequences considering that it is now the place where many engage with politics the most.

Sensationalism

Social media also rewards sensationalism over truth and rationality at a time when information has become unfathomably decentralized and ubiquitous. As news and media have come to surround people at almost moment of their lives, information overload has triumphed and attention spans have taken a hit. To garner attention in this saturated environment, media outlets and influencers often resort to sensationalizing and even misconstruing the truth to attract user engagement. This dynamic is inextricably linked to algorithms, which then curate this type of content at higher and more sophisticated rates to keep users glued to the platform. This desire to retain engagement can lead to the construction and facilitation of a toxic reactionary environment.

Data, Data, Data

The advent of targeted digital advertising enables actors, malicious or not, to engineer and formulate content that it believes their target audience would likely react and engage with. In 2018, the House Intelligence Committee released 3,500 Russian Facebook ads that were designed to target and polarize specific portions of the population. In some cases, Russian-owned pages created and promoted political rallies where they hoped people would violently clash. Russia’s sophisticated and broad utilization of data-centered advertising demonstrates the dystopian implication social media can have on the political process when users are reduced to data points for sale.

The Mob

Ask anyone who scrolls through Twitter often and they are not likely to describe it is a bastion of civility. People are often facing off with complete strangers through the medium of a screen and the internet, which makes them less inclined to seek productive dialogue with others. Unfortunately, this faceless interaction emboldens many to partake in adversarial discourse simply because it is easier to get away with. In fact, the word “troll” was formally added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary in 2017. Russian groups who specialize at stoking this inflammatory behavior are today known as “troll factories.”

Micha Cash, a student at Stanford University, described social media mob mentalities to the Wall Street Journal as “hordes of what are likely otherwise nice people—shielded by anonymity, informed by echo chambers, restricted by character counts, incentivized to provoke shock—give in to their feral impulses and vomit abusive nonsense onto the web for a world-wide audience.”

If the environment that social media cultivates undermines the ability of people to discern truth, erodes civility, and enables geopolitical rivals to launch overt disinformation campaigns in the middle of national elections, it becomes clear that social media does in fact have negative consequences for democracy.

Conclusion

The United States remains at one of the most polarized periods in its existence. The rise of social media has done little to mend these sharp divides. If anything, it has been a driving force behind decreasing public trust in information and has allowed primitive mob mentalities to shape political discourse across platforms. It even appears that conspiracy theories with no factual basis have been born, resuscitated, and are flourishing across the feeds of Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

As with any consequential invention, product, or industry, people must decide its utility and how it will be used to ultimately better or harm humanity. Social media is here to stay. It is not inherently good or bad, but it has clear and demonstrable flaws that must be worked out. There must be sustained and serious discussion surrounding its application in any free society. Democracy requires certain norms and ethics to prevail to stand strong. Governments and platforms must formulate policy around that very reality. Allowing these flaws to continue to run amok will only continue to polarize populations that are in desperate need of unity.

In his 1995 book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, world-renowned astronomer Carl Sagan provided a disturbing warning about the future, stating:

I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

September 8, 2020 2 comments

Global Health Globalization Immigration Society and Culture UCLA and the World

Pandemic Fascism

written by Grayson Peters

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global health crisis. Governments worldwide are struggling to restrain the spread of the novel coronavirus, hoping to “flatten the curve” and avoid a surge of patients needing hospitalization which could overwhelm limited hospital beds and medical supplies. Faced with this challenge, many governments are reaching for greater authority over the movement of their citizens, imposing forced quarantines and border closures, activating emergency powers, and ramping up surveillance. While these measures may be effective as short-term countermeasures against the coronavirus, it is undeniable that, compared to only a few months ago, governments are exerting a far greater degree of control over the everyday lives of people.

Nationalists and xenophobes have taken to blaming the pandemic on foreigners, ethnic and religious minorities, and globalization. These reactionary sentiments have the potential to interact dangerously with governments that are increasingly comfortable with exercising authoritarian emergency powers. If the coronavirus is not successfully managed and millions fall sick and die, it has the potential to traumatize the world, radically reshape global politics, and transform the relationships between citizens and governments.

This worst-case scenario, which I call “pandemic fascism,” is the synthesis of medical authoritarianism, a reactionary fear of the foreign, and the collective trauma of a deadly global pandemic.

Unprecedented Border Closures

Countries across the globe are implementing travel restrictions, limiting the ability of their own citizens to move freely and some cutting off entirely from the outside world. These border closures and internal travel restrictions are on an unprecedented scale.

Canada, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Greece, Romania, Ukraine, Latvia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Saudia Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Oman, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia, and New Zealand have closed their borders to all foreign nationals.

Hundreds of other countries including the United States have put in place less draconian measures like requiring mandatory quarantine periods for foreign visitors and returning citizens. For example, China, Nepal, Madagascar, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Jamaica, Rwanda, Singapore, South Korea, Uruguay, Chile, and Israel have all mandated that those entering the country from abroad remain in quarantine for 14 days.

Other nations have chosen instead to selectively bar travelers from other countries. Jordan, for instance, barred entry from neighboring Israel, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, before adding France, Germany, and Spain to the list.

Medical Surveillance

Although systems of national security surveillance already exist, states are rapidly expanding their abilities to monitor individuals in every waking moment, log their movements, and archive the most intimate details of their lives.

In China, an already pervasive surveillance system is growing to meet the threat of COVID-19. Police officers are donning ‘smart helmets’ equipped with cameras capable of facial recognition and measuring the body temperature of passers-by within a range of five meters. GPS tracking and ubiquitous facial recognition cameras log the movements of citizens, allowing for those who unwittingly come near confirmed coronavirus carriers to be automatically notified. Access to buildings can be restricted if a security camera observes that an entrant has a fever.

Israel implemented a controversial mass surveillance program operated by the Shin Bet security service to track the cell phone location and personal data of persons suspected to be infected and diagnosed with coronavirus, empowering the Health Ministry to send text messages notifying anybody who came into contact with them to self-quarantine. While both legal and arguably justified in the service of public health, this new system of medical surveillance received criticism from privacy advocates. Avner Pinchuk of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel argued that “the danger of COVID-19 is not only the virus itself, but the fear that as part of the efforts to overcome the danger, we will also lose our basic values as a free and democratic society.”

South Korea has used surveillance camera footage, smartphone location data, and even records of credit card purchases to backtrace the movements of coronavirus patients, determine who they were in contact with, and reconstruct chains of transmission.

People under total lockdown in Lombardy, Italy are under location surveillance by the provincial government to ensure that they obey the stay-at-home order and limit their time outside. Lombardy vice president Fabrizio Sala claimed on March 17th that phone location data provided by cell companies showed that 40% of Lombardians were still moving too much.

Blaming the Foreign

Government officials and private individuals are also taking part in the longstanding tradition of blaming foreigners and immigrants for disease. Instead of taking ownership of their crisis management (or lack thereof) leaders are dodging responsibility for failures of public health policy, advancing nationalist policies by using vulnerable groups as scapegoats.

President Donald Trump has taken to calling the coronavirus the “Chinese Virus” amidst a spate of racist attacks on Asian-Americans, and tweeted that the global spread of the coronavirus would be prevented by the completion of his signature wall on the border with Mexico. Sheriff David Clarke, a frequent guest on Fox News, speaker at the 2016 Republican National Convention, and high-profile Trump surrogate suggested that George Soros, a frequently-employed Jewish boogeyman for the far-right, was behind the spread of the coronavirus. Media and political figures in Turkey have claimed that coronavirus is a Zionist plot orchestrated by the state of Israel. Two spokesmen for the Chinese Foreign Ministry insinuated that the virus was brought to China by the United States military and did not, as scientists have concluded, originate in a wet market for wild animal meat in Wuhan.

In each case, blame for the pandemic is not directed towards the virus itself, insufficient public health policies, or overburdened health care systems, but towards alleged foreign threats and traditionally stigmatized groups.

Pandemic Fascism: America First Bruins

On March 25th this year, a new student organization at UCLA named America First Bruins made its social media debut with a joint resolution signed by the Bruin Republicans and five other College Republicans chapters. Alleging that the “Wuhan Virus” is spread by the “continued importation of refugees, guest workers, and foreign students,” the statement calls for President Trump to suspend refugee resettlement, the issuance of F-1 student visas, and the H-1B visa lottery while completing the southern border wall and deploying military assets to seal the northern border with Canada.

America First Bruins is an openly fascist club. I mean this in the truest sense of the word and without hyperbole. The header on its Twitter profile reads, in stylized vaporwave text, “Communists aren’t people.” The club cites Nicholas Fuentes, a holocaust denier, as inspiration. On the subject of ICE raids during the coronavirus pandemic, the club president tweeted “Can ICE just cough on illegals or something?” On the subject of Harvey Weinsein’s 23 year prison sentence for sex crimes, he tweeted “This is proof that women are literal children and should not have full rights.” Responding to the claim that accusing Ben Shapiro, an American Jew, of “dual loyalty” to Israel is antisemitic, he responded: “Jews have no loyalty to Israel? HAH!”

The fact that America First Bruins debuted and the Bruin Republicans openly embraced fascism for the first time amidst the coronavirus pandemic is not a coincidence. The emergency and the nationalist sentiments it produces are fertile ground for fascist organizing. This unprecedented shift in the political culture of the UCLA campus should be understood as a microcosm of an emerging far-right in the politics of American youth, emboldened by the cultural impact of COVID-19.

Fascism and Public Health

Broadly speaking, fascism is an ultranationalist and totalitarian political philosophy which imagines a mythic national rebirth from a state of degeneration, moral decay, and foreign subversion. In fascist rhetoric of the 20th century, foreigners and minorities were often characterized not just as undesirables or political subversives, but as parasites and vectors of disease infecting the body politic.

The German Nationalist Socialist Party, for example, often described Jews as parasites who both leeched off of German society and physically corrupted the German race through miscengination and moral degradation. In this way, previous fascists frequently conflated public health, the body politic, and an ideal of societal purity.

President Trump, importantly, has also used the rhetoric of public health as a way to attack immigrants and marginalized groups. As a candidate for president in 2015, he accused undocumented Mexican immigrants of bringing “tremendous infectious disease” across the border as justification for a border wall and widespread deportations.

The veneer of public health concerns allows fascists to pursue their policy goals of discrimination, exclusion, and genocide without openly admitting that hatred is their motivation. Border closures, travel bans, and immigration restrictions are far more politically viable if ostensibly justified by medical necessity. As a result, fascists like the America First Bruins capitalize eagerly on legitimate anxieties about disease transmission in order to demonize minority groups and expand the national government’s emergency powers.

Looking Forward

Now that we’ve laid out the theoretical elements of pandemic fascism — xenophobia and authoritarianism in the name of public health — it is necessary to ask whether or not this actually represents a serious threat. I believe it does.

In March, Politico reported that the U.S. Department of Justice had furtively requested that Congress grant it emergency powers, including the ability to petition a judge to detain someone indefinitely during a declared national emergency. More borders are shut, more emergency powers activated, and more people under tighter surveillance by governments than ever before. Historically, periods of crisis have enabled strongmen and demagogues to play on the public’s fears, seize unprecedented authority under the guise of responding to the emergency, and consolidate their power into permanent and oppressive regimes.

While the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates strong government responses, including restrictions on travel, immigration, and some proactive surveillance, these measures must be balanced with respect for privacy and a serious understanding that, once the outbreak is managed, governments will cede their emergency powers and the balance of power between citizen and state will return to relative normalcy. And, most importantly, people must continue to point out and shame those who weaponize fear of a virus into hatred of minoritized people. If fear is allowed to fester into hate, then the danger of pandemic fascism that lasts long after the spread of COVID-19 has ended may become a reality.

March 29, 2020 0 comment

Source

Featured Globalization Human Rights Internet Journalism Security Security and Conflict Society and Culture

Multinational Corporations and the EU’s New Data Laws

written by Eden Ballard

United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12

“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”

This sentiment is echoed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Article 17, Right to Privacy. On April 8th 1988 the UN adopted general comment number 16 to article 17 which states that:

The gathering and holding of personal information on computers, data banks and other devices, whether by public authorities or private individuals or bodies, must be regulated by law. Effective measures have to be taken by States to ensure that information concerning a person’s private life does not reach the hands of persons who are not authorized by law to receive, process and use it, and is never used for purposes incompatible with the Covenant. In order to have the most effective protection of his private life, every individual should have the right to ascertain in an intelligible form, Whether, and if so, What personal data is stored in automatic data ﬁles, and for What purposes. Every individual should also be able to, ascertain which public authorizes or private individuals or bodies control or may control their ﬁles. If such ﬁles contain incorrect personal data or have been collected or processed contrary to the provisions of the law, every individual should have the right to request rectification or elimination.

Nearly 31 years old, this statement has gone largely ignored as the internet exploded and user engagement far outpaced any thought to user privacy. This changed on May 25th, 2018 when the European Union took a major step in protecting the privacy rights of individual users by adopting the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The website created for the GDPR boasts that it is “the most important change in data privacy regulation in 20 years.” This regulation impacts how the the privacy of more than 500 million EU citizens will be protected from exploitation by online service providers. With the approval of the General Data Protection Regulation, the European Union has shown that it holds individual privacy to be of the utmost importance.

The GDPR applies to the conduct of all companies that provide services for EU residents, even if it is only for one EU resident. It aims to safeguard against individual users’ data being used in ways they do not knowingly consent to and mandates that consent can be withdrawn as easily as it is granted. This ability to withdrawal consent protects what they call “The Right to Be Forgotten.” One of the main ways that this is protected is by prohibiting from using “long illegible terms and conditions full of legalese.” Apple’s “Terms and Conditions” updated as of September 17, 2018 was a lengthy 7,006 words. The contract ambiguously ends: “Children under the age of majority should review this Agreement with their parent or guardian to ensure that the child and parent or legal guardian understand it.” However, the parents or legal guardians themselves are likely not reviewing nor understanding it; it’s unfair to expect that average users feel comfortable or have the spare time to try to understand the needlessly verbose contracts drawn up by lawyers working for multimillion dollar firms. Now behemoth companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon, each serving a network of users across the globe, are being asked to rise to the occasion… and they will.

The amount of revenue generated from the more than 400 million internet users in the EU is more than enough to incentivize companies to adhere to the GDPR. If they fail to change their policies or decide to pull out of the European market, the business face the loss of millions of dollars through fines or from decreased profits respectively For violations of the GDPR’s stipulations on consent, among other legal issues, fines are the greater of twenty million euro or 4% of the entity’s gross global revenue. That said, Google and Facebook were quick to make sure that they updated their user policy to adhere to the GDPR.

Google will be making data they collect viewable under “My Activity” and users will be able to delete specific activity or data from entire time frames that they would rather not have associated with their account. Data privacy information has been made more easily accessible and users are provided with clearer explanations of Google’s data practices through a series of video tutorials outlining a user’s options for managing, exporting, and deleting data.

Both Facebook and Google will have special protection features for their users who are under 18 years old. Facebook’s include requiring parent or guardian permission for the use of target ads and restricted sharing.

On April 17th, 2018 Facebook’s Newsroom published an outline of changes being made to accommodate the GDPR. In addition to allowing the data to be more easily deleted, Facebook will ask users to agree to their updated terms of service and data policy, whether they want to see ads targeted to the information they have filled out on their profile, and if they want to turn off Facebook’s face recognition features. This last option will also be available to users in Canada.

All of this comes shortly after Facebook’s now infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal in which data mined on Facebook was collected and used to strategically place ads pertaining to the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Users were inadvertently handing over their data to a third party by playing games and taking quizzes that were seemingly innocuous.

This particular application of mined data, and many other similar instances, highlights that as our dependence on technology and virtual programs has increased over the years, we have slowly but steadily bought into a system without taking the time to critique it. Collectively, people have become complacent about what contracts they absentmindedly agree to mean in the context of their everyday lives. Although we understand that anything shared on the internet will never truly disappear, we fail to ponder what happens when we hand over our addresses, credit card information, age, and other personal statistics to sites like Amazon, Twitter, banking sites, and dating services.

Unfortunately, even with the publicized steps corporations are taking to meet the expectations of the GDPR, business is business and companies continue to look for ways to maximize profits and minimize accountability. In response to the GDPR, Facebook now handles their user responsibility out of their offices in California instead of their international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. This allows them to circumvent the GDPR and that user rights are now subject to the much lighter U.S. data protection regulations. On top of that, Facebook is still able to advantage of comparable tax breaks by booking their revenue through their Irish office. Alex Hern of The Guardian summed up the issue on April 18th, 2018: “Facebook has moved more than 1.5 billion users out of reach of European privacy law, despite a promise from Mark Zuckerberg to apply the “spirit” of the legislation globally.”

The GDPR is a step in the right direction for privacy rights but the fact remains that the very companies that so many people depend on in their day to day lives continue to abuse their global dominion. As illustrated by Facebook’s move to California, regulations lack strength unless they are implemented globally. The data privacy values outlined by the Article 17 of the ICCPR should be regarded equally around the world. Until there are universal norms, corporations will exploit legal irregularities to serve themselves, not their trusting customers. Looking to the EU as an example, one can only hope that soon the international community will begin to ask, and rightly so, about individuals’ right to privacy on the world wide web.

March 11, 2019 0 comment

#MeToo Featured Human Rights Society and Culture Women's Rights

The #MeToo Movement

written by Sanah Mehta

Legacy

I stand

on the sacrifices

of a million women before me thinking

what can I do

to make this mountain taller so the women after me

can see farther

– Rupi Kaur

According to the UN Women Website, 35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual violence, and less than 40% of these cases ever get reported. Encountering such a case of sexual violence with a young girl, Tarana Burke, an African-American activist who suffered from sexual abuse herself, said, “I watched her put her mask back on and go back into the world like she was all alone and I couldn’t even bring myself to whisper…me too.” Burke finally did say #MeToo and took the first step by uniting and building an extended network of women who too have suffered sexual exploitation and enabling them to voice their traumas openly through a non-profit organization called Just Be Inc., and the #MeToo movement on MySpace. The movement focuses on the mantra of ‘empowerment through empathy,’ turning “victims into survivors and survivors into thrivers” through constant dialogue and the reassurance that someone, even if they are half a world away, has had the same experience.

The United Nations Secretary-General’s Bulletin, Special Measures for Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, defines sexual exploitation as “any actual or attempted abuse of a position of vulnerability, differential power, or trust, for sexual purposes, including, but not limited to, profiting monetarily, socially or politically from sexual exploitation of another.” Sexual abuse, similarly, is defined as “the actual or threatened physical intrusion of a sexual nature, whether by force or under unequal or coercive conditions.” In simpler terms, it is curtailing a woman’s freedom and subjecting her to a position of inferiority due to actions of a sexual nature. It can range from being cat-called on the streets, to being pinned down and raped –– it has many iterations. The recent outpouring of stories by victims using the #MeToo hashtag from places all over the world including, but not limited to, the United States, India, Vietnam, and Uganda, has proven the unfortunate uniformity of the issue. Irrespective of the country or culture, sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse exist everywhere in the world.

#MeToo in Other Languages Sounds the Same

Given the extensive global outreach of this movement, reaching 85 countries with 1.7 million tweets, I would like to highlight the key instances that marked its pinnacle in the following countries.

United States

In the United States, sexual harassment is most prominent in the workplace. According to a 2016 EEOC comprehensive study, 25% to 85% of sexual harassment cases reported by women are in the workplace, spread across a variety of industries such as entertainment, politics, and media, among others. With several strong speeches by the likes of Meryl Streep and Viola Davis advocating for a harassment-free work environment, the #MeToo Movement sprung into action with a violent force, drawing attention to big names such as Harvey Weinstein, Brett Kavanaugh, and Bill O’Reilly as possible perpetrators.

Harvey Weinstein, the former Miramax mogul, and legendary Hollywood producer, faced charges of sexual harassment and rape, filed officially by 2 women, but brought to light by numerous others including actresses Angelina Jolie, Uma Thurman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Lupita Nyong’O, among others. Weinstein’s efforts to hide his antics, through continuous threats of ending careers or forcing further assault, went in vain when he was arrested in May 2018.

Similarly, Fox News entertainer Bill O’Reilly had complaints of “verbal abuse, unwanted advances and lewd comments” levied against him by at least 6 women. His long history of sexual propositions and threats were exposed in a New York Times article, where he is said to have settled legal claims with his accusers for about $13 million over the years. Thanks to the #MeToo movement, several women have come forward to voice their experiences and despite O’Reilly’s power and President Donald Trump’s support for him, he was ousted from his job at Fox News in April of 2017.

However, perhaps the #MeToo movement’s biggest challenge was witnessed during the hearing of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. In the midst of his Supreme Court confirmation hearing, a high school acquaintance- Christine Blasey Ford- accused him of sexual misconduct in the 1980s. Kavanaugh denied all charges, saying, “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.” With the #MeToo movement at its peak, the FBI was brought in to investigate. In spite of the allegations and ongoing controversy, Kavanaugh was confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate and was sworn in as a Supreme Court Justice, while women and men alike chanted “Shame!” in the streets.

India

Being born and brought up in India, I have always been surrounded by the social stigma that exists around talking about any sort of sexual harassment. In a society that has long inferioritized women and given entitlement to men, sexual harassment or abuse is always considered to be the woman’s fault and blamed on factors as wide-ranging as the way she dresses, who she goes out with, what time she’s out until, or even the fact that she’s educated. The ‘blame the victim’ mentality is perpetuated even by the Ministers of Parliament through their comments on sexual assault cases. Ranked as the ‘Most Dangerous Country for Women’ by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, about 29% of women are physically and/or sexually assaulted in their lifetime.

The #MeToo movement in India gained momentum following the gang-rape of 23-year old Jyoti Singh Pandey in the capital New Delhi in 2012. Suffering massive injuries, Nirbaya (Hindi for ‘fearless’) as she became known died undergoing treatment in Singapore for injuries she sustained during the assault. The instance shook the nation with severe outrage. The perpetrators were given death sentences, and the Indian law for rape (Section 375/376 of IPC) was expanded beyond penovaginal intercourse to include voyeurism, stalking, and acid attacks. Moreover, The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013 now makes it easier for survivors to seek medical help and justice. And with this, the #MeToo movement began in India. Today millions of Indian women are standing up and reporting assaults and instances of harassment on social media to the authorities. While sex crimes have not reduced overall, the strong silver lining is that they are now reported more than they once were.

Vietnam

About 87% of Vietnamese women are sexually harassed in public. Of these, the most vulnerable group is journalism student interns and entry-level female journalists, according to research conducted by a Swedish international media development institute, and the Hanoi-based Center for Media and Development Initiatives (MDI).

Although Vietnam has been lauded for having one of the “world’s highest female labor force participation rates, similar educational attainment for men and women, and better-than-average representation of women in its legislature,” sexual violence against women persists. The #MeToo movement began in Vietnam with a sexual assault allegation at Tuoi Tre, a major daily newspaper in Vietnam. A young intern accused her supervising editor of sexual assault, and then afterword attempted suicide. This scandal brought out thousands of female journalists on Twitter with the tags #toasoansach (clean newsroom), #ngungimlang (stop staying silent), and #MeToo. Khuat Thu Hong, founder, and director of the Institute for Social Development Studies said, “The phenomenon of sexual harassment in Vietnam is politicized in a way [that] there are a lot of efforts to silence the victims or cover up what occurred.” Consequently, Tuoi Tre denied all charges against the senior editor in a statement.
The movement has a long way to go in Vietnam, as the Vietnamese Labor Code lacks a clear definition of sexual harassment, and the country lacks clear data on the issue. However, as more women begin standing up for themselves and one another, even the most powerful culprits will be punished.

Uganda

In Uganda, as in a shocking and saddening number of countries, many women are wary of telling their stories of sexual abuse. For one, many of the perpetrators are renowned businessmen, politicians, or people whose power prevents the victims from getting the justice they deserve. In many cases, evidence is destroyed, and in some, the survivors are silenced through bribery or even murder. A second factor is undoubtedly Ugandan culture. The Baganda, the largest ethnic group in Uganda have a saying, ‘ebyomunju tebitotolwa,’ which translates to ‘No woman is supposed to tell stories from their home,’ preventing women in abusive marriages to seek respite. Moreover, Onesmus Twinamasiko, a Member of the Ugandan Parliament, even gave a televised interview encouraging men to beat their wives to “discipline” them. Just like India, the ‘blame the victim’ mentality is prevalent in Uganda as well, preventing women from reporting cases.
But with the #MeToo movement spreading across the globe, many women in Uganda are refusing to be silenced and have come out with their experiences. A University student in Kampala was harassed by her professor to trade sex for grades. Similarly, a secondary school student reported that she too had been sexually harassed but “never complained about it for fear of reprisals from teachers.” Many such instances reveal the gender inequality in Uganda, and although the #MeToo movement resonated with women, it is the apathetic justice system which fails them.

Louise Burke, a reporter for The Daily Telegraph, wrote that #MeToo “exposed an epidemic of sexual assault and harassment across every corner of the world and unbottled a collective fury which can no longer be contained.” With humble roots, this movement gained rapid momentum and created a worldwide phenomenon of helping survivors of sexual abuse deal with their experiences with fearlessness, encouragement and most importantly, empathy. However, even though this movement is up and running and yielding results through changing laws, arresting and prosecuting offenders, and spreading awareness, there is still a long way to go towards changing the mindset and innate behaviors and attitudes of not just men, but women as well, that allow sexual exploitation and gender inequality to persist. This is just the first step towards learning from the sacrifices of millions of women who have gone through such trauma and hopefully creating a stable system to make the world a more equal place for women and preventing future generations from ever having to experience similar pain in the future.

November 17, 2018 0 comment

Environmental Change Featured Global Health Globalization History Human Rights International Trade Society and Culture The International Economy

Bayer Acquires Monsanto: Controversy & Implications for Global Agriculture

written by Sareen Ishanyan

Following two years of negotiations and approval seeking from various governmental bodies, the acquisition of the American agricultural biotechnology company known as Monsanto by the German pharmaceutical and life sciences giant Bayer was approved in spring 2018. Less than half a year later in August, Dewayne Johnson of the Bay Area was awarded $289 million in a civil suit which charged Monsanto’s infamous Round-Up Ready herbicide–also known as glyphosate–with causing Mr. Johnson’s diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

For years, Monsanto has been decried by environmentalists and farmers alike for its pesticides, herbicides, genetically modified seeds, and seed policies. Additionally, with Bayer’s acquisition of Monsanto, there are concerns for monopolization of the global seed market, as Bayer itself is a highly important player in the field of agriculture. This article seeks to understand the implications of a potential monopolization of the global agriculture system. First, however, this article will provide a background with a brief overview of the various controversies associated with Monsanto.

Criticism of Monsanto has spanned decades. During the Vietnam War, Monsanto was the largest American manufacturer of Agent Orange, an herbicide and tool of warfare used by the American military. Research in this area suggests that exposure to Agent Orange is associated with negative health effects. Vietnamese people and American veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange have been found to have higher cancer incidence rates than those who were not exposed. Meanwhile, the spraying of Agent Orange in Vietnam resulted in serious environmental problems, namely deforestation and reduction in the diversity of animal species.

Additionally, the seeds produced and patented by Monsanto have been a major source of controversy. One common charge involves cross-pollination lawsuits. For example, if a farm has planted the seeds of a patented GMO and, by way of cross-pollination, these seeds reach a neighboring farm and produce plants, it is often believed that Monsanto will sue, and has sued, the latter farm simply because of wind patterns affecting the movement of pollen. However, in reality, as one NPR article notes, there have been no such suits. But in 2013, the United States Supreme Court heard a seed saving case involving Monsanto. Based on patent law, the Court ruled in favor of Monsanto, which had sued a farmer from Indiana for saving seeds. Saving seeds refers to the practice whereby after harvest, seeds are saved and planted during the next year. Monsanto requires farmers who purchase their seeds to sign contracts in which they pledge not to save the patented Monsanto seeds they purchase in a given year. Still, this issue and the surrounding debate remain controversial as many question the practice of granting companies patents of living things. Arguably, patenting seeds is especially problematic as seeds are, both literally and symbolically, one of the most important living things on the Earth. Further, in India, over ninety percent of the cotton seed is controlled by Monsanto. In fact, some have even argued that increased suicide rates among Indian cotton-farmers is associated with Monsanto’s practices and patents of seeds. The evidence regarding a causal relationship is not conclusive, and many argue that a causal relationship does not exist; still, it is striking that Monsanto owns over ninety percent of the Indian cotton seed.

Additionally, the biotechnology of Monsanto has serious implications for agriculture and the environment. Round-Up Ready, also known as the chemical glyphosate, is the most popular herbicide used in agriculture. Glyphosate is a powerful chemical that is able to eliminate the growth of unwanted plants such as weeds. Yet glyphosate is also capable of killing valuable plants too. It is for this reason that Monsanto created genetically engineered crops that are resistant to glyphosate. The first of the company’s genetically engineered crop was the soybean in 1996. However, the use of glyphosate has the potential of developing so-called superweeds, which are resistant to glyphosate. Also, the development of such superweeds may induce the increased use of herbicides and pesticides by farmers attempting to contain such weeds. It is for these reasons that some protest Monsanto on environmental grounds.

Another issue is that there are concerns about the impact of glyphosate on human health. In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research concluded that glyphosate is a possible carcinogen. And, as discussed, a recent court ruling in San Francisco ruled in favor of Mr. Johnson, who claimed that Monsanto’s Round-Up Ready herbicide caused him to develop cancer. Monsanto, now considered a ‘unit’ of Bayer, faces thousands of other similar lawsuits, with many dying individuals in Northern California being given expedited trials. Still, Bayer is arguing that Mr. Johnson and the court ignored certain pieces of scientific evidence which claim that their is no link between cancer and glyphosate, and are seeking a mistrial.

However, it ought to be noted that the link between glyphosate and cancer is one that is under debate. For example, the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency have concluded that glyphosate is likely not carcinogenic. Monsanto has also been accused both of attempts to suppress scientific research reports which offer a negative assessment of Monsanto pesticides, and also instances of ‘ghostwriting’ scientific research findings which hold that glyphosate is safe for human health. For example, The New York Times notes of one 2015 article posted on the Forbes website that is believed to be ghostwritten by Monsanto but is credited to an academic named Henry I. Miller. Still, however, a study published in Scientific Reports found a link between glyphosate and fatty liver disease. Along with the recent court ruling, the possibly carcinogenic nature of glyphosate has been particularly salient in the last several weeks following a report that found traces of glyphosate in cereal such as Cheerios. The environmental research and advocacy group that published this report, Environmental Working Group, claim that such traces of glyphosate can says could “increase cancer risk for children.” However, as stated, findings about the nature of glyphosate remain inconclusive.

Amid the debate on the health and safety of glyphosate, there has been much talk in the European Union on the question of whether or not glyphosate should be a banned chemical. Many contend that glyphosate should be banned across all EU member states. While states such as Belgium voted against re-licensing glyphosate in the European Union in 2017, the vote ultimately ended in Monsanto’s favor with glyphosate’s license being extended for an additional five years. It will be interesting to see whether the acquisition of Monsanto by Bayer, a German company, will have any effect on the use of glyphosate in the EU.

Further, Bayer’s acquisition of Monsanto suggests that alterations in the agricultural arena await. First, it should be noted that there has been a recent trend of consolidation in the agriculture industry. For example, before the Bayer-Monsanto merger, the companies Dow and DuPont merged, as did Syngenta and ChemChina. As Mark Connelly, an agriculture analyst notes, Bayer’s acquisition of Monsanto indicates that “$1 out of every $3” that farmers spend on seeds, pesticides, and herbicides will go to Bayer. In other words, a third of the world’s agriculture supply is now controlled by one company–Bayer. This consolidation has farmers across the globe concerned. For many, the increased trend of monopolization means increased prices. This is supported by data and research from the Farmers Business Network. In research that focused on the price of corn seeds and chemicals, this group found that greater market share was associated with higher market prices for products. As mentioned, Bayer now controls a third of the market share. Dow-Dupont and Syngenta-ChemChina are not far behind.

Monsanto has historically been associated with a variety of controversial products and practices. Despite all this, it is undeniable that the science and innovation of Monsanto has been remarkable. For instance, in the 1990s, the ringspot virus threatened to destroy the papaya industry in Hawaii. However, Monsanto, which had a patent on transgenic technology, allowed for this technology to be used to create the Rainbow Papaya, a genetically modified papaya that is resistant to the ringspot virus. This saved the Hawaiian papaya industry. However, there is the the fact that Monsanto manufactured Agent Orange, a biochemical weapon with possible long-term health effects, that was used in Vietnam. But Monsanto was not the only company contracted by the American government to produce this war chemical. There is also the fact that Monsanto’s patents over biological entities, such as seeds, has also received considerable attention. However, sensational claims of Monsanto suing small farmers because of wind patterns and pollen drift appear unsubstantiated. Also, the health and safety of Round-Up Ready is a current and hotly-debated topic. Thus, while Monsanto has been a topic of debate for decades, it is not clear whether Monsanto has done more harm than good, especially with regard to the agriculture industry, human health, and the environment.
Finally, while the acquisition of Monsanto by Bayer means that, legally, the name Monsanto refers to a company of the past, doubtless, the issues associated with (what was) Monsanto will continue to persist. Further, this recent acquisition marks a highly significant moment for the global agricultural sector. It is especially important to see how all of this will unfold in the coming years.

September 24, 2018 0 comment

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