WebProNews

Tag: Democracy

  • Google Could Easily Rig an Election with Search Results, Says Study

    Google Could Easily Rig an Election with Search Results, Says Study

    Search results wield the power to color one’s view of any person, place, or thing. This is a given. And being the far-and-away biggest search engine in the world, Google wields most of that power. Of course, in order to sleep at night, we all have to assume that Google will, ultimately, restrain from using that power to nefarious ends. At least not too nefarious.

    Though it should be obvious that Google plays a huge role in most Americans’ perceptions, it’s certainly unnerving to think about the search giant swaying an election.

    But that’s exactly what Google has the power to do, according to researchers.

    Psychologist Robert Epstein says, unequivocally, that your next president could ascend to the oval office with the help of some Google search algorithm tweaks. And he has some data to prove it.

    Epstein set up a very basic experiment. Take a bunch of undecided voters, give them the choice between two candidates, set them loose to search said candidates for 15 minutes on a Google-like search engine, and see if it sways their opinions.

    And boy did it ever.

    From Epstein’s write-up at Politico:

    In our basic experiment, participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups in which search rankings favored either Candidate A, Candidate B or neither candidate. Participants were given brief descriptions of each candidate and then asked how much they liked and trusted each candidate and whom they would vote for. Then they were allowed up to 15 minutes to conduct online research on the candidates using a Google-like search engine we created called Kadoodle.

     

    Each group had access to the same 30 search results—all real search results linking to real web pages from a past election. Only the ordering of the results differed in the three groups. People could click freely on any result or shift between any of five different results pages, just as one can on Google’s search engine.

     

    When our participants were done searching, we asked them those questions again, and, voilà: On all measures, opinions shifted in the direction of the candidate who was favored in the rankings. Trust, liking and voting preferences all shifted predictably.

    How much of a shift? Epstein says favorability ratings for the candidates jumped anywhere from 37 to 63 percent which, given elections are often decided by small margins, is a pretty big deal.

    It’s not far-fetched when you think about it. if you searched for a candidate, and you mostly see negative headlines pop up on the first page of search results, it’s reasonable to think your opinion of said candidate may suffer. Flip that to positive results, and you could understand how Epstein thinks Google could easily promote certain candidates.

    Of course, one would have to believe that Google would want to influence an election. I mean, who knows? It’s not as if Google is a massive corporation with a multitude of vested interests.

    Would that be evil of them?

  • Pride Parade in Russia Leads to Arrests

    Pride Parades in the U.S. this weekend come hot on the heels of victories for marriage equality advocates. The U.S. Supreme Court declared the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 to be unconstitutional. Proposition 8 in California, which banned same-sex marriage in that state, was confirmed to also be unconstitutional. But even without the extra victories for marriage equality in the U.S. this past week, Pride Parades have become fairly passé on our landscape. In the past they were unusual events, avoided by and bewildering to straights. Nowadays just as many straights attend, march, observe and celebrate as gays.

    But the more things change, the more they stay the same. In Russia this weekend, a group of about 40 gay rights activists were gathered at a rally in a place that is designated as space for public demonstrations. Having such a space may seem in itself to be a great advance for Russia. But using it to demonstrate for gay rights is not allowed. Police reportedly arrested dozens of people at the rally.

    The arrests came on the heels of a newer statue in Russia that prohibits any public displays of homosexuality, as well as talking about it to children. Anyone violating the law is subject to arrest and fines, including media organizations who may report on it.

    There is a widespread hostility toward homosexuality in Russia. Some blame it for the low birth rates in that country. Some further say that gay persons should be barred from government jobs, be subjected to forced medical treatment or even be forced to leave the country.

    Activists have tried to draw attention to their cause in ways that are would not be considered too hostile or salacious, allowing them media coverage without endangering the media organizations that might report on it. For example, several gay and lesbian couples tried to marry at a local registry office, knowing they would be turned away by authorities.

  • Advocates to FCC: Forbid Cell Phone Jamming

    Advocates to FCC: Forbid Cell Phone Jamming

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, and the Center for Democracy and Technology have implored the Federal Communications Commission to prohibit federal, state, and local governments from resorting to cell phone shutdowns. The request stems an FCC inquiry from 2011 regarding the incident where the Bay Area Transit Authority shut down cell phone activity in order to hopefully suppress protests related to the killing of Charles Hill.

    BART allegedly had information from a “credible” source that protesters had planned to disrupt transit on August 11, 2011, to demonstrate against the killing of Hill. BART believed that the protesters had planned to organize via cell phone communication, so between 4PM and 8PM, the time that protesters had planned to gather, BART shutdown cell phone service throughout parts of its system.

    The attempt to disrupt the protesters was widely condemned and it’s been said that the move may even have been illegal. Pro-democracy groups have decried BART’s decision to jam cell phones, saying it’s a violation of rights protected by the First Amendment. Sherwin Siy, of Public Knowledge, detailed the ways in which such an action by a government entity violates the Federal Communications Act. The EFF has submitted comments to the FCC about the cell phone jamming, comparing the act to similar practices in countries with oppressive governments, Egypt and Syria, and saying that it violates the public’s First Amendment rights.

    Yesterday, BART defended its actions in a letter to the FCC, saying that the temporary interruption of cell phone service was “a necessary tool to protect passengers and response to potential acts of terrorism or other acts of violence.” The letter, written by BART General Manager Grace Crunican, goes on to enumerate fantastic scenarios including cell phones disguised as bombs used to kill passengers and flood the transit tunnels.

    As much as that is a truly spectacular fantasy, the act of protest is much, much older than cell phone technology and so, even though protesters may have been relying on the devices as a means to organize, shutting down cell phone service is no way to prevent protesters from causing disruptions in the transit system. Further, the shutdown hindered the ability of transit passengers who probably need that service, too.

    Although BART has since ratified a new policy that states the organization will not turn off cell phone service in circumstances like that of the August 2011 shutdown, the actions of BART set a dangerous precedent for other governments to use similar tactics. It is with this caution that the advocacy groups have requested that the FCC expressly forbid any body of government from resorting to a cell phone shutdown in the future. Hopefully, the FCC will take their words to heart.

  • Internet Use Promotes Democracy in Free Countries

    Although use of the internet has been credited with helping spur democratic revolutions in the Arab world and elsewhere, a new multinational study suggests the internet is most likely to play a role only in specific situations.

    Researchers at Ohio State University found that the internet spurs pro-democratic attitudes most in countries that already have introduced some reforms in that direction.

    “Instead of the internet promoting fundamental political change, it seems to reinforce political change in countries that already have at least some level of democratic freedoms,” said Erik Nisbet, lead author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University.

    “Internet use is a less effective means to mobilize citizens for democracy in extremely authoritarian countries.”

    In addition, demand for democracy is highest in a country when more people are connected to the internet and, most importantly, when they spend more time online.

    “Internet penetration in a country matters in terms of how much people want democratic reforms, but it is even more important that people are spending greater amounts of time on the internet and that they are connected to other people in their community,” said Elizabeth Stoycheff, a co-author of the study and doctoral student in communication at Ohio State.

    Nisbet and Stoycheff conducted the study with Katy Pearce of the University of Washington. Their study appears in the April 2012 issue of the Journal of Communication, a special issue dedicated to social media and political change.

    The researchers analyzed previously collected data on 28 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. This included surveys of 37,549 people who participated in the 2008 Afrobarometer and 2006-2008 Asian Barometer surveys. Included were questions that evaluated how much the citizens in each country demanded democracy and their frequency of internet use. In addition, the researchers looked at country-level data that measured how democratic each country was, and their levels of internet penetration, international bandwidth per internet user and other sociodemographic factors.

    The results suggest that the internet is most likely to play a role in democratization in countries that have a moderate to high internet penetration and that have at least a partly democratic political regime. In countries ruled by authoritarian regimes, people may have access to the internet, but the rulers may control the content available, how users may interact with each other, and whether they may get information from outside their own country, Stoycheff said.

    “The internet’s effect on citizen demand for democracy is somewhat contingent on both the technological context and the political context,” Stoycheff said.

    Based on the results of the study, Nisbet said there are some countries that currently appear to have the right political and technological mix for the internet to play a role in social and political change. Those countries include Kenya, Senegal, Uganda, Singapore and Zambia. But countries in the survey that are run by highly authoritarian regimes, such as Vietnam and Zimbabwe, are not likely to see democracy flourishing anytime soon, regardless of use of the internet, the findings suggest. Other countries, like Mozambique and Tanzania, are partly free but have a low citizen demand for democracy and little internet penetration, Nisbet said. But if internet use grows in these countries, it has the potential to encourage people there to challenge their autocratic regimes.

    “Our results suggest that the internet can’t plant the seed of democracy in a country,” Nisbet said. “However, the internet may help democracy flourish if it has already started to grow.”

  • Google Partners With POLITICO On Technology And Politics

    Google and YouTube are partnering with POLITICO to host an event on Monday at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. to talk about technology’s role in democracy and the political process.

    The Google Blog offers more details.  “With less than six weeks until the midterm elections, we wanted to hear from some of politics’ most creative minds about what innovation and democracy mean in 2010.”


    “As part of the event David Axelrod and Ed Gillespie will answer questions and offer thoughts and predictions about the upcoming elections. Arianna Huffington will then moderate a panel about innovation in media, and will be joined by Becki Donatelli, Stephen Hayes, Nate Silver and Amy Walter. We’ll also demonstrate tools built for citizens and government officials using YouTube and Google Maps, and will be joined by our friends on the politics team at Facebook.”

    Google is also inviting people to submit a question for any of the panel members via youtube.com/citizentube. People will also be able to watch the entire event live on YouTube on Monday from 2:30-5:30 ET and on POLITICO.