Soda started their career anchoring their sound on classic rock but evolved into synth heavy, mind-bending, ambiance-creating rock. Their style is recognizable across all their discography, composed of great guitar riffs, drums that give songs forward motion and sticky music motifs.

This is my favorite hour of Soda Stereo music:

Until the next adventure,

parra-yagnam

#music

I want to use this space to share some of the more crucial elements of the presentation for the sake of public profit. Also, this takes the form of a massive braindump which represents my own views and no one else’s. And thus will be subject to revision without notice.

The current elements of the social media discussion

To start, we need to ask ourselves how we got here and what are the core elements that permeate the social media discussions. In short some of the elements are: (1) the nature of the internet; (2) the replication of human behavior – good, bad and ugly – in that hyperreality; (3) each country’s freedom of expression tradition; and (4) an increasingly stingy media ecosystem that lives from controversy and theatrics instead of helping understand the underlying nature of social media companies’ way of working.

In that environment it is important to keep Hanlon’s razor in mind when thinking about social media company behavior: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” Mostly because I believe that inventing motives distracts us from thinking more deeply and critically about the issues at hand.

This being said the following words will be directed mostly shedding some light into the nature of State-Transnational Company relationship and what are some of the ideologies that support the structure of some of the most talked about governance ideas. Two main ideas:

1. The problem of content moderation and platform governance/regulation requires a politico-ideological solution.
2. This is the case because the issue at hand is a wicked problem which technocracy/technology/engineering can only partially solve.
3. What is worse, if we continue to be inclined to leave the solutions to engineers we run the risk of not being able to influence the ideological path dependency that some of these solutions will create.

The International Landscape that supports social media companies

Social Networks and global internet actors flourish in a very “neoliberal” view of international relations. In it, cooperation and transnationalism are viewed as keys to integration, leading to better economic and political outcomes (e.g. less chances of war). In a neoliberal view of international relations, companies, engaging in Surveillance Capitalism or otherwise pushing for more classical capitalist globalization, stress the classical concept of Westphalian state sovereignty. In short, power that was previously circumscribed within geographical borders is relocated to private entities ruled by incentives that differ drastically, for the most part, with those of a classical nation state.

In fact, if we take Bull’s ideas of the “anarchical society” we will find that he postulates that States organize internationally in a society. This society is held together by a sense of common interests and ideals (e.g. human rights). These states also build common rules and institutions which, in turn, creates a larger sense of belonging. However, international society is anarchical (i.e. there is no state that solely holds the power to enforce rules over the others. In other words no one holds the absolute monopoly of force). And in that context, as Wendt said “anarchy is what states make of it”. Or, in this scenario, anarchy is what social media companies make of it.

In this context there’s some that believe that the existence of an international society (and the peace it consequently generates) is reinforced by transnational economic ties. Which would make them great proponents of the continuous existence of transnational actors that erode the State’s traditional power.

Interestingly, the question of digital sovereignty and of transnational powers syphoning power from our classical nation-states is not a new debate at all. Since the late 90s, beginning of the aughts, there has been scholarly debate around these issues. In it some relevant questions have appeared: (1) what power do States hold in an anarchic world where services aren’t necessarily bound to local standards because of their global, self-regulating, nature? (2) What does sovereignty mean when we speak about social networks and cyberspace at large?

What does this international landscape mean for the “global south”

The “centre vs. periphery” logic that Raul Prebisch used to understand the differences in power and economic development between countries seems to be a great analog to what is happening in terms of digital regulation. The balance of power is inclined in favor of countries/regions that have a higher economic power or happen to be the host/headquarters of social media companies.

This fact, creates an international power imbalance by which countries in the global south are submitted to regulation/legislation that comes from other States. The main question here is what our unit of analysis should be. Some legislation comes from country/regional blocs versus other that comes from states that are part of a larger federation (e.g. California). The locus of power matters because it resolutions affect people across the globe as they force (or set incentives) transnational companies to behave differently across borders. In fact, the question of locus of power might be more complicated because we need to take into account who makes the decisions, who writes the standards and who is affected by them. Most of the time these three sub-sets of people do not overlap.

This situation begs the question of what countries in the global south can/should do to balance International power vis-à-vis other states and social media companies. In other words: What power do States in the periphery hold, in an anarchic system, in which social media services are not constrained by local standards but by either auto-designated standards or by standards required by foreign states?

To build on top of this question, we need to wrestle with the fact that the technical aspects of content moderation (economies/problems of scale, automation, etc.) have a direct influence on the realm of the socio-political. However, the inverse relationship does not happen as easily. Companies, specially policy and engineering teams hold the power of defining the structures of content moderation systems – and those are part of the companies priorities, not the users.

Content Moderation Governance: Powers in tension

At a very high level, there seem to be three main ideological powers that are fighting for contention. The way that States/companies have been trying to organize themselves can be characterized in two buckets: the globalists, the nationalists, (and the self-regulatory).

As stated above there are globalizing forces at play that we need to be mindful of. Grosso modo I have identified four elements – not exhaustively -that play in favor of globalization: (1) the decentralized and geographically unbounded original nature of cyberspace; (2) the minimum standards of Human Rights and international law that ensure freedom of expression and strict tests based in jurisprudence to censor speech; (3) the idea of content moderation “cartels” coined by Evelyn Douek, whereby platforms tend to make the same content decisions on high-visibility issues because of media ecosystem pressure; (4) the idea that content moderation is “assembled” (in the sense that Beck uses the word in his book “Risk Society”) over infrastructure, and therefore elements at that underlying level trickle up towards the surface layers (content) in terms of what is allowed to exist (payment platforms, data storage, etc.). Examples of this last phenomenon are payment restrictions for pornography or even rules on what is allowed to be hosted in certain servers.

On the other hand, there are “nationalistic” forces. Several States have tried to fight back against the power of transnationalism and they have done so trying solutions at three different levels: systemic, procedural and theme-based. Examples of systemic approaches are the creation of “state-intranets” like in North Korea and Iran where the power is derived from controlling the whole network. A level lower, is the idea of controlling procedures of content moderation which is what Germany does with NetzDG and France tried to do with its failed Avia Law. The idea that companies needed to adapt reporting and reviewing flows and turn-around-times to adapt to these laws shows the power of them – although their actual effect is unclear in terms of whether they actually force different outcomes altogether or if they offer heightened protection for their citizens. Finally, the idea of theme-based legislation is what most countries do by default because of their application of older rules to the content moderation space. A classic example of this is the regulation around the topic of defamation.

The main issue with nationalistic tendencies is that they are, at their core, opposed to the universal nature of the internet and its services/networks. Therefore the more enforcement at country level we see, the larger the risk of “balkanization” of the internet. Where we lose all the benefits of networked connection because platforms aren’t able to operate across borders because of legal risks.

Finally, there is a “third way” which I’d characterize as platform “self-regulation”. This would differ from their globalist power in the sense that it requires them to create new institutions that are independent and relocate some of their central power to them. This is the case of Facebook’s Oversight Board. Some of the main issues with the creation of this type of organism, at an international level, is that a private company continues to relegate power in a private structure that is outside of international agreements (even though in the case of Facebook’s Oversight Board one of the core elements of it is their tie to human rights law) but most importantly, which States do not necessarily have any power over. In this scenario, democratic power whether of countries or users is not necessarily reflected properly.

Moreover, self-regulating bodies in content standards seem still to be far away from being a silver bullet. Cases presented to them are never straightforward to “solve”- as they are supposed to see the most relevant ones –, but most importantly it doesn’t solve the problem of local tolerances being heterogeneous which means locally made decisions might differ with the originally globalist idea of procedural/decision fairness (“equality under the law”). In other words, what is behind this is, how do we conciliate global policies with local standards? And, most importantly, who and how do they make decisions? Self-regulating bodies seem to be a good step in divesting power out of private companies and into bodies with different incentives but they seem to be subservient to the originally globalist platforms.

Ideological reflections

The question of what kind of content moderation model we want to have is a political philosophy question. Within this realm there are interesting defenses of democratic pluralism versus technocratic/neoliberal solutions. First of all there are substantial and logical arguments in favor of embracing the heterogeneity of communities that use the service by decentralizing decision-making power. First and foremost there is the benefit of increased information transparency. As I have argued in past writings the current social media ecosystem does not foster decision-making level intelligence for users or regulators (in fact, most of the time is the complete opposite). Second there would be higher levels of accountability at user and central level because more scrutiny, checks and balances, would be placed on both ends of the institutional design. Third, decentralization means that we’re able to replicate the institutions recursively to the level of granularity needed. Fourth, there’s an argument of cost-effectiveness at the central level – which we can delve more into when we speak about economies of scale. Fifth, it satisfies those who believe in the “Leviathan hypothesis” in which the State is a greedy institution that pushes for infinite resource consumption and growth.

However, decentralization and democratic pluralism comes with its own set of complications. At a high level, accepting content moderation decision-making alternatives based in democratic pluralism (incl. decentralization) that emanate from private companies means to ratify their power as global actors. And this begs the question whether while we’re trying to push and follow an ideal of user (“citizen”) participation we are concurrently de facto ratifying these companies as pseudo/neo-States?

In other words, does pushing for more democratic social media platforms, mean that we’re cementing these extra-State organizations whose main reason for existence is to continually produce higher economic profits? It would seem that in this situation the question of the difference in leitmotivs between a nation-state and a company is critical. While a nation-state, for the most part, has the goal of serving and governing its people and territory, a company’s existence is determined by serving its shareholders who, at least in theory, just want better return on investment. This is not to say that sometimes the idea of generating more revenue cannot be aligned with what would be “best” for the users. What is really clear, is that it that “sometimes” is not nearly enough.

Final Thoughts

Power is not equitably distributed at an international level. When thinking about new actors in international relations we need to ask who has veto powers and who are the de facto powers.

Simultaneously, we need to start doing more work to unveil what the implicit ideologies are. This will become critical to understand who’s interest it is for a specific governance model to reign.

That being said, there are no perfect solutions or silver bullets. This means that our choice will and has always been ideological: just like we defend democracy as our governance “north” what is that equivalent for content moderation or even the meta-verse?

See you in the next adventure,

parra-yagnam

#thoughts

Bonus: International Relation Concepts

Below I list some of the relevant I.R. concepts that I think are useful when thinking of social media governance and regulation:

• Hedley Bull’s “anarchical society”
• Keohane and Nye’s “Neoliberalism/Transnationalism”
• Hans Morgenthau’s “Balance of power”
• Raul Prebisch’s “Dependency Theory” in specific the arguments about how the world is organized and tensioned through center/periphery
• Robert Putnam’s “Two-Level Policies”
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• De facto global standards like Platform’s Content Policies
• Digital vs. Westphalian Sovereignty

Ikon Images / Getty Images

1. What is manufactured ignorance (agnogenesis) and why should we care?

This fancy greek word comes from the mix of the word for ignorance or ‘not knowing’ and ontology, which is philosopher-speak for studying the nature of being. Coined by Robert Proctor and Iain Boal in 1995, they state that “ignorance is not just the not-yet-known, it’s also a political ploy, a deliberate creation by powerful agents who want you ‘not to know’.” In fact, some of the original manufactured ignorance studies were focused on tobacco companies’ public relations campaigns. Their strategy focused on seeding doubt to compete with the epistemological paradigms and scientific evidence to establish controversy.

According to Proctor ignorance can be “produced or maintained in diverse settings, through mechanisms such as deliberate or inadvertent neglect, secrecy and suppression, document destruction, unquestioned tradition, and myriad forms of inherent (or avoidable) culturopolitical selectivity”. He broadly characterizes three types of ignorance (1) native state ignorance (what is yet to be discovered); (2) lost realm ignorance (as product of inattention or sociological selection); (3) strategic ploy ignorance (manufactured with some specific goal). That being said, ignorance is not inherently evil, even when manufactured. I’ll get to that in the final section of the post. However, the public should care about strategic ploys by organizations (government or private corporations) to create public ignorance when their stake may be at odds with public interest.

This post deals with the tactics of manufactured ignorance and information obfuscation that social media companies seem to leverage in order to fend off criticism, avoid answering the tough questions and escape effective regulation.

2. Agnogenesis: you can’t fight what you don’t know

“Proctor found that ignorance spreads when firstly, many people do not understand a concept or fact and secondly, when special interest groups – like a commercial firm or a political group – then work hard to create confusion about an issue.” – BBC, Georgina Kenyon, 6th January 2016

A quick glance over social media’s newsrooms will land you articles upon articles dedicated to “explain” failures and features of content moderation processes. The truth is that these posts are infested with (1) unverifiable claims because the public has no access to the critical data required to pass accurate judgement; (2) sleight of hand arguments that try to create a fake ‘balanced debate’ argument.

Two current examples to illustrate these points. First, the latest controversy for Facebook is related to COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation. Their response to President Biden’s formulation is contained in an article called “Moving Past the Finger Pointing”. A forceful piece in which Facebook tries to defend itself from the claim that they have contributed to people dying by feeding them misinformation. There, as Carl T. Bergstrom points out that “it would be nice to be able to rely on facts. Unfortunately, Facebook has exclusive access to the data we need to know what the facts are, and is not forthcoming with those facts”. Similar claims has been made by experts in the field here. In short, it is impossible to fairly judge a problem if the companies continue to keep the public from accessing critical data.

Second, Robert Proctor explains that ignorance can often be propagated under the guise of balanced debate. There are fitting examples of this in “‘It takes two to Tango” by Nick Clegg. In the article the ‘balance routine’ allows the spin-doctor to claim there are two sides to the story, that ‘experts disagree’, that ‘causality is unclear’. In this piece Clegg states that algorithms are not solely to blame for integrity issues – that people are also responsible to what they see. However, as Elinor Carmi has pointed out: “Unlike the way he portrays the tango as a partnership between two dancers on equal footing, in fact in most styles of the dance there is a leader and a follower. […] The Facebook tango is also not with two dancers on equal footing.” Likewise, Clegg’s article is trying to ‘balance’ the debate, for instance, by posing the following rhetorical question: “Perhaps it is time to acknowledge it is not simply the fault of faceless machines?” All the while avoiding the core subject of algorithmic responsibility.

Of course agnogenesis can take other shapes. For example, it has been reported that Sheryl Sandberg has downplayed Facebook’s role in the January 6th Capitol attack commentary. This would classify in Procter’s taxonomy as deliberate secrecy. Another case would be the internal selectivity on Information Operations highlighted by Sophie Zhang that portrays the case “where organizational amnesia may be as important as institutional memory”.

Regardless of the reasoning used by companies to communicate in this way (paternalism, internal bureaucratic tensions, etc.) there seems to be a pattern of creation of ignorance that crushes efforts to create commons, ensure power redistribution, or even the democratization or effective governance/regulation of tech platforms. The knowledge vacuum created by companies is subservient to those in power, keeping them from actual public accountability. In this scenario the public and law-makers are left disarmed.

3. Is fabricated ignorance opposed to democratizing efforts ?

In a general sense, the argument of an ill (or even mis) informed public makes an easy case for those who believe that governance/government should be left to an oligarchy. The government of the enlightened few – or the “government of philosophers” as Plato would have it – has proven, in practice, to derive in tyrannies that end up producing sub-optimal societal outcomes. In short, those few in power have strong incentives to make sure they retain that power. Fabricated ignorance is one of the conduits through which an organism can keep operating at will because they are the only ones “who know better”. On the flip side, public ignorance also perpetuates the vicious cycle of company and tech zealots being able to say that “users/politicians don’t know what they are talking about”.

In addition, agnogenesis as a strategy to deal with tech governance/PR issues seems to be at odds with achieving any sort of elegant (win-win) solution to the main integrity problems plaguing social media platforms. Fabricated ignorance as a defense mechanism – allowing for plausible deniability, blame-shifting, or even defense by obscurity by companies – is antipode to a more democratic and fair use technology. In simple terms, the asymmetry of information makes it impossible for the public to (1) be literate enough to understand the issues, (2) advocate for feasible solutions and (3) rally behind the key issues and solutions.

To make matters worse, to counterfeit legitimacy, companies have done efforts to disclose some data on enforcement. However, in most cases there is no way for the public and its institutions to audit any of it. Some would argue that this feature drains the data of value or that is makes more harm than good to the governance ecosystem overall. Facebook’s Community Standards Enforcement Report is one of these initiatives. An experts panel requested by Facebook themselves have highlighted public scrutiny issues with this report.

These contextless disclosures foster further public ignorance. Companies throw complicated definitions and big numbers that can’t be easily explained at the public thereby creating a false sense of “legitimacy”. This obscurity of the data makes productive public debate effectively impossible because either (1) everyone bases themselves on these numbers that have little meaning or (2) the important methodological discussions (what type of data and context are required for content moderation accountability, for example) are given little attention, giving journalists no incentive to effectively report on it.

4. Some fissures in the agnotology strategy: the push for knowledge is the first step for real democratization

Agniogenesis disguised as transparency might be the most harmful of manufactured ignorances because it gives a further false sense of knowledge to an already deceived public. In general, it would seem like transparency-for-auditability and transparency-for-accountability is what is needed. Coupling that information with the existence of independent watchdogs dedicated to advocacy and research and we would be closer to create a much healthier version of our current tech governance ecosystem. Alas, social media companies have no incentive to put themselves in the crosshairs of the public.

However, the Oversight Board – an interesting effort at self-regulation – has pushed Facebook to be more transparent in several ways that align with the goal of “airing the truth”. Through their investigations and case recommendations they have indeed forced the company to explain previously obscured parts of its content moderation processes.

This governance effort seems to fall short on the specifics of accountability because its by-laws do not (1) require Facebook to comply with their recommendations, leaving the public and the Board at the mercy of a corporate framing of the issues at hand; (2) establish transparent ways for the Oversight Board to have actual supervision or access to a larger array of Facebook data (think classifier features, precision, recall — although those might be revealed voluntarily by Facebook); (3) doesn’t necessarily allow the Oversight Board to disclose this key information to the public in any format. In order to call this body an actual “oversight” organism I’d like to see its investigative and public disclosure powers enhanced.

The operating of the Oversight Board begs the question of what the standard should be. In practice it is helpful to see what our oldest public institutions do. The difference between government manufactured ignorance and private companies is that government has to follow clear rules established through democratic decision making (at least in democratic countries). For example, classification – in spite of its imperfections – poses certain safeguards to secrecy and thus to government manufactured ignorance. In stark contrast, social media companies are not subject to special rules rules or governance around what’s accessible to the public, for example governing what’s private company data, when information should be “declassified”, what can be required by the people for the public interest, etc. Because these companies are private corporations, by default everything gets treated as “secret”, manufacturing crippling public ignorance. Therefore, there is no certainty that the public will ever know or have authoritative data on some of the main issues affecting our social tissue. We currently rely on studies done with small portions of data relinquished by the companies or by user testing/experiences which tend to have less external explanatory power. In other words, it is very hard to draw general, authoritative conclusions from them — we live in a world of anecdotes.

Moreover, there are no rules that govern the public’s access to data other than what companies believe to be your “personal information”. For instance, there is no Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that can be filed by a normal citizen to a company. There’s no rule by which a company needs to comply with data declassification after a certain amount of years. In this world, we need to settle for companies creating insurmountable asymmetries of information in the name of “trade secrets”. To be clear, I’m not advocating for companies to give up their intellectual property – the same way that we don’t expect States to relinquish documents that contain raison d’État. However, we could definitely do better. Governance around transparency and manufactured ignorance matters. In fact, law-makers, instead of trying to solve the integrity issues, should start with pushing effective ways of dealing with public ignorance. Some ideas: create mechanisms for companies to (1) disclose data to audit behavior of their algorithms (news feed, content classification and enforcement, etc.); (2) give the public the ability to send and appeal information requests related to, not only their personal data, but also on matters of public interest including content moderation treatment; (3) create/foster an ecosystem of NGO (or even government backed) watchdogs that audit the data, publish reports and inform law-makers — ideally this government organism would work hand in hand with the Oversight Board; (4) create mechanisms for reparations on wrongful acting by companies following investigations.

In several countries around the globe there are oversight organisms that have legal power to access internal data of companies dealing within key industries. Classic examples of this type of governance include pensions, banks and energy. This would be a good first step to have in replacement of the FTC in the USA — HQ seat for most of the social media companies. However, in the future, international initiatives should be established to consider the countries in the periphery. No effort to disrupt manufactured ignorance will be complete without access by those who are marginalized and given less power.

5. Final Words

It is clear that agnogenesis arguments lend themselves to paranoia. Regardless of the intentionality behind this ignorance, it is clear that it exists in ways that hold us back. In this context, it seems that the current imperfect antidote for manufactured ignorance is whistleblowing. This has been the case for government created ignorance through classification — let’s think about Snowden, WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning, etc. This has also been true for social media where the greatest opportunities for public knowledge have been provided by whistleblowers and/or journalists (think, for example, about the Dispatches investigation on content moderation or the more recent covid vaccine hesitancy scores ). They give us some of the key pieces of the wicked-problem-mosaic that’s content moderation operations at large. Thus, if companies want to keep some sort of control of what is disclosed I believe it is in their best interest to stop pretending like “things are too complicated” or that they will be revealing “trade secrets”. Comms teams need to start explaining and integrity teams within the companies need to start disclosing key relevant data and creating ways for people to audit them. It surely is easier to keep us under the weight of the night – as Diego Portales, Chilean “founding father” said – but it is also clearly worse overall.

Is agnotology always bad? Not necessarily. Manufactured ignorance might be helpful in some cases specifically in “perfect theory” scenarios. One example of a relevant thought experiment is John Rawls’ ‘veil of ignorance’: the only way for people to write just rules for a society would be to make sure that they know everything they need to do their job but absolutely nothing about their position in said society. This ignorance would, in theory, make these decision makers take positions that will benefit society as a whole instead of their own interest. A paradigm that we could explore expanding to policy-making in the content moderation world: how to leverage manufactured ignorance for governance and to ensure fairer outcomes.

Clegg himself has said that “a better understanding of the relationship between the user and the algorithm is in everyone’s interest”. He is right. But now we know he may be saying it for the wrong reasons.

See you in the next adventure,

parra-yagnam

P.S. It is clear that we could dedicate a whole article to the business of manufactured ignorance that surfaces in the form of mis/disinformation. It would be valuable to start talking about agnotology instead of misinformation. If enough folks request it, I might take a stab at this.

#thoughts

Robert Proctor, Londa Schiebinger (2008) “Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance”, Stanford University Press

I wrote the chapter: “Chile, pionero: desafíos y oportunidades para una política estatal frente a los actores digitales globales” in Cristóbal Bywaters, Daniela Sepúlveda Soto, Andrés Villar, eds. Nuevas voces de política exterior: Chile y el mundo en la era post-consensual (Santiago, Chile: Fondo de Cultura Económica), pp.217-226.

This chapter is a more of a practitioner's paper that touches upon tech governance and regulation from a global south's perspective, and offers some perspectives vis-à-vis new technologies and policy recommendations, specific to Chile's context and foreign policy stance.

You can check out the chapter here:

Author’s accepted version (Spanish, non-final)

For more info on the book check out:

Book Information – Spanish

Amazon Kindle Info

See you in the next adventure,

parra-yagnam

#thoughts

My own loose translation:

These smart-asses They line their own pockets as God mandates and then they come to us with their same old music that we should be patriotic

This entry has (1) some personal history; (2) some reflections on the absurdity of political outcomes; (3) a brief flight over the pandemic – not in the way you think; (4) a message for the future.

Where did Parra (Nicanor) and Parra (Manuel) meet?

I don't remember when I learnt about Nicanor. It seems like I've always known him. His anti-poetry was a staple, a thing that I took for granted, in a house filled with irreverence and politically inclined (leftist) Sunday conversations. What I do vividly remember though is that he showed up in our Spanish literature, ministry of education mandated, high school class' syllabus. I also will never forget my parents taking me to his 2001 exposition of 267 “artifacts” in the Telefónica building in downtown Santiago.

I first liked him because of his humor. His artifacts always had some kind of ironic (but also un-ironic) touch. However, as any good comedian does (not implying that he is one per se), behind the surface, he was helping us cope with realities that we didn't want or could not comprehend. His artifacts have always dealt with thorny subjects like capitalism, inequality, politics and religion. He rubbed loads of people the wrong way but that's who he was. Unapologetically, he was offered the exhibition space below La Moneda (Chile's seat of government) where he promptly hung by the noose figures of all past presidents of the country.

After being exposed to his art, I learnt some facts about his life. Born to the famously artistic Parra family – that I really badly want to confirm I'm related to but can't (believe me, we tried finding the records) –, he had 6 siblings. Five musicians (Violeta and Roberto some of the most famous Chilean folklore singers of all time) and a circus artist. The only one of his siblings to pursue high school and university studies, he graduated a math professor. He then won a scholarship and went to Brown University, USA, and got a masters degree in advance mechanics (physics). By that time, he had already written some poetry and won some local awards for it. A few years later, he left Chile again, this time for the UK, where he studied cosmology at Oxford. All in all, as part of his science career, he made critical contributions to the field of mechanics. On top of that his poetry was recognized by the biggest voices in Spanish literature and he was nominated for a Nobel Prize in several occasions. I was fascinated by the unorthodox path this man took; often wishing I had at least a small percentage of that style in me.

Parra and the absurd outcomes of the economy and politics

“Hay dos panes. Usted se come dos. Yo ninguno. Consumo promedio: un pan por persona.” – Nicanor Parra

There are two pieces of bread. You eat two. I none. Average consumption: a bread per person.

Through this pandemic, we have been witnessing the absurdity of being punished by people who base their political/public policy decisions on a “philosophy of knowledge” v. a “philosophy of existence”. These political creatures that through their deductive thinking believe that they (1) can model the world into a specific shape and (2) that their way is better than any other way. We have forgotten that a more “platonic” outlook forgets how to deal with “rubber meets the road”. I'm not advocating for a “blind technocracy” but rather a more humane approach where (1) values act as the guiding principles they were meant to be and, (2) reality and infrastructure are the concrete bases for decisions.

It seems that this way of thinking permeates both sides of the political spectrum in Chile, leading to absurdist outcomes. For example, Government decides they are too orthodox to side with (the objectively very bad) 3rd withdrawal of individual pension funds to help people survive the quarantine. However, at the same time they decide to skimp on direct transfers to people, instead choosing public policies that look good on paper (“we are able to reach 80% of the most vulnerable population” kind of speech) but that in truth hide misery (because the amounts are laughable) and disrespect (because getting a gigantic red “x” displayed in your face when you are not elegible for governmental aid is not fun either if you are really struggling). This, of course, is in spite of direct transfers being one of the objectively best public policies in situations like these (praised by the economy Gods of the IMF and others, of course). This thinking has been said to permeate all the way from the “2nd floor” of La Moneda where some very neoliberal orthodox seem to be running the show. I want to believe that Parra would have definitely made an artifact out of this absurdity (see the first image in this post).

(Oh, and to my friends on the left: there are versions of this on your camp too. Like the hypocrisy of the Communist Party praising Stalin or Lenin and then being the highest advocates for Human Rights.)

What seems to be happening here is that we have forgotten what to make of complexity. Confronted with a million choices – as the election crawls closer – and their respective 2 square meter ballots, not even the population knows what to do. Mostly because the discourse around public policies like the 3rd pension withdrawal is totally “philosophy of knowledge” – where the realities of people don't matter. Most of the most vulnerable folks do not have money in their pension account to withdraw anyways and, this turns out to be one of the most regressive policies in a moment where solidarity and social security should be paramount. And instead, we have people blindly advocating for stuff that will make the country worse off.

One of the things that I have always liked is the idea of social security and sovereign investment funds. Tax where you need to tax to finance the overall wellbeing of the country and the redistribution/decentralisation to allow for as much freedom as possible. Make the State a force for good in terms of investments, good jobs and create reliable infrastructure that will last decades to come. Iterate on what is working/not working right now and take into account the multiplicity of realities hiding behind social media. Let's ride a “philosophy of existence” with some fundamental values (like solidarity/fraternity – yes, I'm talking to you deep pocketed millionaires) as guardrails and make some progress.

Some Parra for the pandemic

Stats versus people is a staple of this pandemic. The fascination with cases, infection rates, vaccination speed and others is incredible. In general, these stats/data bring little to no information to the average Joe (myself included) that has no clue what to make of them. In general, I choose to be hopeful and I'd like to believe that science is winning the battle against this virus. In spite of the outbursts of “anti-vax” or “anti-quarantine” movements.

However, my main reflection to day is that we never got time to grapple and grief. For a strange reason it seems like since the start of the pandemic we've been under a constant state of “compassion fatigue” due to data/news saturation (Sontag 2003). We tracked numbers but most of us didn't track the reality of death unless it came really close. That empty spot in the dining table or the cold side of the bed that because of Covid are never going back to normal. Have we desensitized ourselves to the power of listening to the stories ? I fear sometimes we might have collectively chosen data (our future overlord?) over humanity to convey messages that are intrinsically emotional. Not all of us need the stats, because we're not decision makers. Most of us need the stories though.

On top of it, the population's concentration span might be reducing considerably and the 140 characters on a twit that doesn't give enough context is what we might end up transmitting (or re-sharing?). In general, the fact that most visited media today is image based (incl. video) makes for a dire issue in these situations because the need for images means that detail and more complex ideas can be easily lost. (Michalski and Gow 2007: 218) However, some people are doing it right, using the medium to explain, in ways that are creative and close to the public some of the more complex mechanisms behind the vaccines, for example.

Today, I choose to remind myself that death has no future. This should be both a call to action and also a reminder that we need to look into the future after we've grappled with the losses. Collective trauma might be eased by celebration of those who passed but also by creating new and friendlier (both to the environment and to ourselves as humans) ways to live. We need to honor them, both taking care of ourselves and making it better.

Parra for the future

I think I've written enough incomplete thoughts for an entry. I hope this gives you all some idea of what I've been wrestling with lately.

I will leave you with one last artifact and let Nicanor do the talking. The beauty of poetry is that we can make it what we will.

More than the already opened flowers, the ones of interest, are the ones that are about to open

See you in the next adventure,

parra-yagnam

#thoughts

This is a short article that comes as a fast-follow from (1) my previous research currently in press for Nuevas Voces de Política Exterior and (2) the Platform Governance Research Network Conference (@PlatGov on Twitter) discussions on diversity.

Dependence theories and neo-colonialism: where economics meets knowledge

Teoría de la dependencia (dependency theory), in the mid 1960s, represented a critical effort to understand the limitations of economic development initiated during a historical period where the world's economy was dominated by the hegemony of large economic groups. In this scenario, Latin American scholars came up with an alternative understanding of the economic inequalities seen across regions in the world. In short, they indicated that there were economic “centres” that dominate the economy and that in order to continue to be on top they required the countries in the “periphery” (e.g. the global south) to be subject to a power dynamic that forced them into being kept underdeveloped (see works by Raul Prebisch, Anibal Quijano, Theotonio Dos Santos and more). The idea that some countries are “dependent” on others for their economic development or position within the economic network gives the theory its name.

These novel ways to understand economic realities, that drew theoretically from dialectic methods and from a marxist understanding of the world, have been contested and criticized for different reasons (see Solorza and Cetre 2011: 135-137 for some of them). However, I'm not here to assess the merits of the theory in terms of its explanatory power or its economic fit. Rather, I believe that the phenomenon of dependency once studied by these Latin American scholars is happening in Tech Platform behavior and governance. Moreover, I believe this situation displays characteristics that could be seen as a form of neo-colonialism.

I show arguments in two sections: (1) asymmetries in the production of Platform Governance knowledge and access; (2) the behavior of Tech Platforms syphons power away from the periphery and their acts might be characterized as neo-colonial given the power dynamics that they exhibit.

Production of Platform Governance knowledge

Taking from the points above, according to Catherine Walsh “knowledge functions like the economy: it is organized through centres of power and subordinate regions – the centres of economic capital are also the centres of intellectual capital. Therefore, and still, intellectual production in Latin America has little weight in the world.” (Walsh 2005: 43)

As per our discussions at the Platform Governance Network Conference, researchers and organizers are very much aware of the need for increased thought and geographical diversity. However, I want to put forward a (little) more robust framework of the two-fold hegemonic nature of the current situation: (a) on the one hand, there is an obvious concentration of knowledge centers and funding (yes, people from the Global South also tend to be underrepresented in PhD programs); (b) and on the other the issues that matter to global governance (e.g. Trump's de-platform, new laws – GDPR, etc.) that affect platforms in a substantial way tend to happen in the power centres (e.g. USA, EU).

These two factors leave researchers and practitioners from the Global South pretty much offside. First, because we are at an economic disadvantage (one researcher mentioned that most of his colleagues had issues accessing paid academic papers legally). Second, because we are at an epistemic disadvantage where (1) we are not experts in the context where decisions are being made and (2) inclusion of “peripheral” views into policy development or governance discussions is insufficient at best.

This issue, however, is only compounded by epistemic domination: as per Polo (2016), for example, eurocentrism imposes a distorting sense that forces the dominated to see themselves with the eyes of the dominator, blocking and covering all possible autonomous historical and cultural perspectives. (Pag. 14) This effect is clear when we look at the discussions happening in several countries of Latin America that tend to look up to the European model for data privacy or to the US for freedom of expression. Because of these power dynamics a sui generis solution seems further away from reality than a bad copy of foreign legislation.

Why the problem of Platform behavior might be characterized as neo-colonial

More fundamentally, I have argued in a previous article (currently in press), that there's an issue with the ability for countries in the 'periphery' to fully self-determine vis-à-vis platform behavior/governance. In short, countries of the Global South are subject to powers outside of their direct control, for example: (1) global Community Standards that regulate speech; (2) the regulatory landscape in the platform's country of origin or their relevant jurisdictions.

On the one hand, for example Terms of Service like Social Media's global Community Standards tend to not be consider local definitions of freedom of speech. In this regard, they might apply more astringent or more lax rules to speech, placing the burden of proof and persecution on the users – who in peripheral countries don't have the same access to robust justice systems (like the EU) and are, therefore, left to their own devices.

On the other, legislative analysis by Platforms tends to be designed in such a way that ensures minimum compliance with local regulations as pointed out by Zuboff (2019). However, and as compliant they might be to be able to operate locally, countries in the periphery are subject to definitions of data privacy or even “terrorist organizations” by countries like the USA or states like California. These definitions permeate the global behavior of platforms, leaving little to no space for countries in the periphery to protest if they don't agree. A similar situation arose with the creation of the Oversight Board – an institution that might contribute to the continuous syphoning of power away from democratically elected institutions and regulations.

A third issue is the potential “ethnification” (Wallerstein and Balibar 1999) of labor in Content Moderation issues. For example, engineering teams at platforms are among the highest educated, less diverse groups. For example within Facebook Black and Hispanic people represent <5% in technical roles and females compose 24% of the overall in the same roles according to FB's diversity report for 2020. The truth is that the most diverse teams occupy spaces in the Trust & Safety / Operations organizations. Positions from where they are supposed to help technical teams (who are very much agnostic) wrestle with cultural context and language expertise. Research presented at the Platform Governance Network Conference shows that these teams often lose the political battle for resources and have trouble prioritizing their proposed changes when competing priorities arise. Sadly, this means that we might already live in a world where people in the industry have tacitly started treating those teams as the “insert ethnicity here” with the domination dynamics that such characterization brings. Diversity in content moderation is definitely brought faster to certain spaces – because of the nature of those teams – that are “lower in the power hierarchy” (including outsourcing) which perpetuates the sense of peripheral work and domination.

Given this scenario, I have been starting to think that we should argue that given the nature of Platforms and their issues, we might witnessing a version of “colonialidad del poder” (“coloniality” of power). (Sousa Santos: 2010, Walsh 2005). Most of all, I think that looking at Platform Governance issues from the perspective of systemic power dynamics might render interesting points of view that will challenge current systems to disrupt some of these potentially perverse power dynamics.

Closing words

These are some of my unfinished, unpolished, unedited thoughts on a topic that could probably fit a book. I'm placing them out there to invite other folks to continue to contribute to this space. I hope that if we're a big enough group we can make a difference by pushing alternative views on Platform Governance. My future work will continue to touch and explore in further depth the framework presented and several of the themes outlined.

Looking at these issues from a larger, more structural position might render interesting results for countries of the Global South. Some practical ideas that might arise, I think, relate to countries banding together to push for common positions vis-à-vis governance issues. Creating new legislative blocks, etc. Definitely, further research is required on these topics to achieve the right recommendations.

Ideally, I don't want to look or make the Global South countries come at this problem from a position of being dominated or weak. There's definitely space for us to do loads in regards to balancing platforms' global reach and power with countries' self-determination (all the while avoiding the balkanization of the internet!). This is not an easy equilibrium to achieve but I believe that we are attending to some interesting developments like the Australian law requiring platforms to conform to a different type of market, which might prove to be a small step in that direction.

On a final note, I believe that the Platform Governance Network will help bring a diverse set of people together, opening spaces and resources to them. However, it should have strict diversity goals to make sure that we are leveling the playing-field correctly. Also, scholars from countries in the “centre” might find it useful to continue to incorporate some of these “peripheral visions” into their research (maybe, in some ways, I'm also borrowing from the the “Two Level Game Logic” framework outlined by Putnam in 1988).

See you in the next adventure,

parra-yagnam

#thoughts

Bibliography

Facebook (2020) “Diversity Report”

Putnam, Robert D. (1988) “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games”. International Organization. 42 (3): 427–460. doi:10.1017/S0020818300027697. ISSN 1531-5088

Polo, Jorge (2016) “Teoría de la dependencia y colonialidad del poder. Dos ángulos de una misma dominación” Revista San Gregorio, No.11, Vol.1 , Jan-Jun, (6-17), ISSN 1390-7247

Solorza, M.; Cetré, M.; (2011) “Teoría de la dependencia”, Revista Republicana, No. 10, Enero – Junio de 2011, pp. 127-139

Sousa Santos, B. (2010). “Descolonizar el saber, reinventar el poder”. Montevideo: Trilce.

Wallerstein, I.; Balibar, E. (1991) “Raza, nación y clase” Madrid: IEPALA

Walsh, Catherine (2005) “Interculturalidad, conocimientos y decolonialidad”, Signo y Pensamiento, vol. XXIV, núm. 46, enero-junio, pp. 39-50 Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia

Zuboff, Shoshana (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Profile Books. 2019.

Es mi humilde opinión que la constitución debe incorporar elementos que aseguren los derechos y libertades fundamentales de los ciudadanos en el espacio digital y que sobrevivan desarrollos tecnológicos futuros. Esto no significa, necesariamente, tener cláusulas especificas para derechos digitales o tecnológicos cuando derechos civiles fundamentales ya cubren esos elementos cruciales. En ciertos casos, mas bien, resulta fundamental avanzar en legislación y precedente judicial que sea relevante al espíritu de los tiempos.

Simultáneamente reconozco que este articulo solo abre la discusión sobre temas que requieren ... más discusión. Pero la idea es que desde ya comencemos a pensar en algunas de estas preguntas para llegar mejor preparados a la Convención.

Advertencia: no soy abogado ni pretendo serlo. Las opiniones de este articulo están basadas en mi conocimiento profesional y académico ligado a la tecnología y ciencia política.

Efectos horizontales vs. efectos verticales

Como acápite inicial, me parece importante entrar en la discusión de un par de conceptos que nos permiten entender mejor la ideación que se encuentra por detrás de ciertos derechos fundamentales en la constitución. En especifico, hablamos de que la constitución es por naturaleza inclinada a generar “efectos verticales” cuando los derechos están delineados de manera tal que están dirigidos a regular la relación entre el Estado/gobierno y los ciudadanos. Esta es por defecto una relación vertical en la cual nosotros, los ciudadanos, entregamos parte de nuestro poder fundamental al Estado en el contrato social y nos sometemos a las leyes y el poder del gobierno.

Sin embargo, esta claro que la tecnología y los espacios digitales no son un instrumento único de los gobiernos. De hecho, son los ciudadanos, quienes a través de uso, suelen estar más cercanos a las relaciones que las nuevas tecnologías generan. A pesar de esto, es notable que ninguna constitución en el mundo (hasta donde llega mi conocimiento) haya considerado regular de manera fundamental los abusos que pueden generar los actores privados sobre los ciudadanos. Es importante considerar que, de manera general, las materias de efecto horizontal – aquellas que regulan la relación entre privados – suelen ser materia de ley y no parte del texto fundamental.

Éste es para mí, uno de los asuntos de naturaleza critica que queda abierto y a ser discutido en la Convención Constituyente. ¿Será Chile el primer país en dar un paso claro en ofrecer protección constitucional para relaciones horizontales de manera más directa? Este tópico es en extremo relevante en la medida que, por ejemplo, las compañías de redes sociales regulan la libertad de expresión a través de normas de uso especificas, las cuales, muchas veces, no toman en cuenta el panorama legal local. Esto, como ya lo he argumentado en artículos previos, erosiona la auto-determinación y soberanía de los países como Chile, los cuales quedan a merced de privados con poder global sobre los espacios de comunicación.

Algunos derechos fundamentales relevantes frente a nuevas tecnologías

El derecho a la vida privada (privacidad) el cual, de acuerdo a la constitución actual, asegura la inviolabilidad del hogar y de toda forma de comunicación privada. Idealmente para que este derecho pueda hacerse cargo de futuros cambios y evoluciones tecnológicas, debería estar redactado de tal manera que proteja a las personas y no únicamente “lugares” o las comunicaciones privadas. Esta propuesta se plantea en el contexto de que lugares como el “hogar” o la definición de “comunicación privada” puede resultar muy estrecha para las nuevas tecnologías. La definición de lo que resulta “físico” en un mundo cada vez mas digitalizado puede ser (en algunos casos) una camisa de fuerza para la protección de los ciudadanos. Obviamente esto implica que hayan definiciones a más bajo nivel (legislación y jurisprudencia) sobre qué vendrían siendo “expectativas razonables de privacidad”, las cuales puedan ir avanzando a medida que se enfrenten a nuevos paisajes tecnológicos.

Aunque el derecho a la privacidad no se encuentra explícito en las constituciones de Alemania, Francia o Estados Unidos (y emana por lo demás de conceptos diferentes en estos países: en algunos casos de la dignidad humana y en otros de la libertad), esta claro que esto puede suponer una debilidad en su respeto pues la protección a la privacidad es interpretada de maneras diferentes por jueces y, por lo tanto, su expresión en la vida real puede fluctuar de manera significativa.

Finalmente, y respecto de las comunicaciones privadas, es interesante considerar la naturaleza de lo que esta siendo protegido: es la comunicación en si misma (el mensaje), el lugar donde ocurre, o el medio por el cual es transportada? Las respuestas son distintas dependiendo de la jurisdicción: en Alemania se protege el canal de comunicación mas que el mensaje en si mismo, mientras que en Estados Unidos vemos una aproximación donde se protege mas a la persona que a la comunicación en si. Dado esto, creo que este momento constitucional serviría para explorar una definición clara de lo que nos referimos con esto pues las implicancias mirando hacia el futuro (mensajería instantánea efímera, etc.) no son menores.

Derechos relacionados a información y datos personales: acceso a la información publicas, protección de datos personales, acceso de los ciudadanos a los servicios públicos. Estos derechos deben encontrarse consagrados, sin duda alguna, en la nueva constitución pues son el pilar fundamental de efectos verticales de protección de los ciudadanos frente a los gobiernos y a los actores privados. La transparencia de los asuntos del Estado por el principio del interés publico debiese primar en la constitución. Asimismo, la protección de datos personales debe fortalecerse – aunque probablemente en este caso se requiere de pasar legislación que (1) vuelva realmente efectiva las penas a no cumplir con la regulación y (2) dote al Estado de mejores capacidades de fiscalización, auditoria e investigación en esta materia.

Libertad de expresión (y de información): un asunto no menor en vista y consideración de las implicancias que existen en este ámbito dada la penetración de las redes sociales. Creo que en este sentido, la defensa férrea de la libertad de expresión debe sobreponerse. Sin embargo, debemos pensar en cómo balancear de mejor manera las definiciones de instrumentos internacionales que ponen restricciones a esta libertad (ej. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 19; General Comment No. 34, Human Rights Committee (2011) (GC34); Rabat Plan of Action. The right to life and security of person: ICCPR Articles 6 and 9, para. 1.). En particular, me parece que la constitución debe asegurar este derecho y que las exclusiones deben estar legisladas en el particular (ej. difamación) pues ese es el mejor mecanismo para lidiar con fenómenos emergentes.

Ahora bien, libertad de expresión no es lo mismo que libertad de publicación o de distribución. Seria ideal si el momento constitucional nos llevara a plantearnos cómo queremos tratar a las compañías de redes sociales y de mensajería privada frente a la ley. ¿Nos parece correcto tratarlos como medios de comunicación (con las reglas que eso implica) o tratarlos simplemente como intermediarios? Legislación inteligente sobre redes sociales es necesaria para evitar sus externalidades negativas (amplificación de conspiraciones, de noticias falsas, violencia gráfica, etc.), poner los incentivos correctos en su operar y establecer la responsabilidad sobre el discurso público y privado en el lugar correcto.

Un par de palabras sobre el dilema seguridad vs. privacidad

Desde tiempos inmemorables se ha discutido el dilema donde la privacidad como derecho fundamental permite que actores criminales se encuentren al amparo de derechos fundamentales para conspirar y llevar acabo delitos. Este debate se volvió mucho mas álgido en Estados Unidos después de los ataques del 11 de septiembre y la consecuente entrada en vigencia del Patriot Act. Sin embargo, el dilema puede no estar totalmente justificado pues la evidencia comparada en países de Europa ha demostrado que cambios constitucionales para amplificar la privacidad no han, en la practica, limitado o bloqueado propuestas para extender poderes gubernamentales en pos de mejorar la seguridad bajo ciertos parámetros.

Por lo tanto, no debiese existir temor de reforzar la idea de la privacidad en la nueva constitución de manera tal que proteja a los sujetos incluso en sus interacciones con nueva tecnología. Idealmente los parámetros de la privacidad permiten, en casos específicos y bajo reglas muy estrictas, extender los poderes del Estado para llevar a cabo investigaciones (i.e. con la orden de un juez para poder intervenir teléfonos, etc.).

Otros derechos y problemáticas

Habeas Data o el derecho a solicitar y obtener cualquier información existente sobre uno mismo y de solicitar su eliminación o corrección si fuera falsa o estuviera desactualizada. En Chile, éste derecho esta consagrado en el artículo 12 de la ley 19.628 sin embargo, suele estar plasmado de manera constitucional en muchos países incluido España y gran parte de America Latina. Es importante recalcar que este derecho aplica a todo tipo de de registros o bases de datos (publicas o privadas) en registros informáticos o de cualquier otro tipo. Personalmente, creo que este derecho puede y debería estar incluido directamente en la constitución pues le entrega un grado de poder y de accountability a los ciudadanos. Además, cualquier discusión sobre habeas data debería incluir el derecho al olvido para asegurarse de que datos que no sean relevantes, obsoletos o simplemente que la persona considere innecesarios sean eliminados de los registros pertinentes.

Derecho a la anonimidad: puede ser considerado un corolario al derecho fundamental de protección de datos o de la libertad de expresión. El derecho a la anonimidad es fundamental en la democracia para que individuos que tienen visiones que disienten de la mayoría puedan sentirse cómodos expresando sus ideas. Al mismo tiempo, puede consagrar la oportunidad de dar mayores derechos a defensores de los derechos humanos o incluso a denunciantes anónimos o whistleblowers (tanto en el sector publico como privado). Me gustaría que se diera, al menos, una discusión sobre reforzar los derechos y protecciones a denunciantes anónimos como mecanismo fundamental de la democracia, del balance de poder y de accountability de la población frente a actores privados.

Derechos sobre el propio cuerpo: además de las implicancias claras sobre las libertades reproductivas (aquí estamos a favor de la legalización del aborto), en la medida que mas avanza la tecnología de modificación y salud de terapias genéticas este derecho se puede volver cada vez mas relevante. Las implicancias desde un punto de la bio-ética caben en un libro totalmente por separado. Sin embargo, el planteamiento aquí es que la discusión debe considerar los efectos de la tecnología sobre el derecho de decidir sobre su propio cuerpo más allá de la discusión reproductiva que ya está en agenda.

Derecho a la inviolabilidad del hogar: este derecho se encuentra consagrado en muchas de las constituciones en el mundo. Sin embargo, la redaccion de este derecho no necesariamente se encuentra a prueba de nuevos desarrollos tecnológicos. En especifico hablamos de los problemas, por ejemplo, de la vigilancia por cámaras de video en espacios públicos (ej. los famosos drones de Providencia o de Lo Barnechea que no pueden evitar mirar espacios privados de hogares en esas comunas), la vigilancia o incluso las imágenes satelitales o los datos sobre las condiciones de vida de una casa (cuentas de electricidad, agua o gas). Asimismo, podemos pensar en un mundo donde existen otras formas de escaneo externo a las casas (por seguimiento térmico) que no necesariamente se encuentran bajo el paraguas del actual entendimiento de este derecho. La discusión constitucional debiese abrir un espacio a una protección irrestricta de lo que ocurre en la privacidad de los hogares, incluidas las nuevas tecnologías o datos que puedan dar pistas sobre lo que en ellas ocurre.

Y entonces ...

Para cerrar, considero que la constitución puede ser un buen espacio para establecer cambios y mejores derechos, libertades y protecciones a nivel vertical y horizontal. Lo que me parece fundamental es tener las discusiones sobre derechos ya consagrados en la constitución actual (libertad de expresión, inviolabilidad del hogar, etc.) desde una perspectiva que las vuelva, en lo posible, a prueba de nuevas tecnologías. No podemos conformarnos con escribir una constitución mirando hacia atrás. Asimismo, considero que las protecciones a los derechos y libertades civiles y el acceso y protección de la información son temas que deben quedar plasmados como parte central de la nueva constitución.

Al mismo tiempo, hay que ser realistas y considerar que en el mundo no ha habido muchos cambios dinámicos en las constituciones por motivo de avances tecnológicos simplemente porque es más fácil atacar los problemas a nivel de legislación y jurisprudencia. A pesar de esto, creo que la discusión constitucional puede ser fructífera para recuperar parte de la soberanía democrática sobre el actuar de actores globales digitales que se ciñen a sus propias reglas de juego.

Hasta la próxima aventura,

parra-yagnam

It is time that we move on from simplistic assumptions to explain the reasoning behind organizational behavior. These generalized unconscious biases contribute to make us ineffective in understanding the incentives and decision-making paths tech companies actually display. Thus, making us more prone to finding the wrong solutions to the problems of free speech, moderation and AI ethics. To achieve alternative, more intentional, version of these assumptions, I've decided to go back in history (both to my past as a political scientist and also to historical events) because part of the path towards that understanding has already been charted for us.

In 1962, at what some consider the closest moment the world has ever been to nuclear war, the USSR had set up ballistic missiles in Cuba in response to the US' move of doing the same in Turkey and Italy (and their failed Bay of Pigs invasion). After the month and 4 days that the crisis lasted, scholars turned rapidly to find explanations as to why both States had acted the way they did (why did the USSR put missiles in Cuba? Why did the US react by blockading Cuba? Why were the missiles withdrawn?). One of them, Harvard Professor Graham Allison, understood the value of getting this right better than anyone, writing his seminal book “essence of decision” in 1971 to try to explain why the events unfolded the way they did.

In general, when we look at the behavior of companies like Facebook or when we look at foreign policy decisions we are focused on a particular outcome (e.g. why did Facebook not do anything to fix AI that ranked inflammatory content?; why did Japan decide to attack Pearl Harbor?). This outcome can be understood in a myriad of ways depending on our analytical framework. However, most of the tech writings on content moderation use a very specific framing: Why did X Company decide to take X decision? Then they fix the unit of analysis and circumscribe it only to the company's choices. Next they focus their attention on certain concepts, specifically, general goals and objectives of the company (making more money, holding more power, etc.) And finally they invoke some pattern of inference: if the company acted in a certain way is because it must have a goal of the type they outlined before. Thus, the offering of explanations revolves essentially around calculating the rational thing for a company to do in a certain situation given specified objectives. A prime example of this is Karen Hao's MIT Technology Review article where she outlines that “everything the company does and chooses not to do flows from a single motivation: Zuckerberg’s relentless desire for growth.” Although this assumption seems fair in the context of a company subject to a capitalist model where the incentive is to always make more profit, saying this implies that: (1) this is the ulterior motive behind Zuckerberg's decisions; (2) this was his intended outcome all along; (3) that there aren't internal (political) forces and standardized processes contributing to the way things turn out; (4) that Zuckerberg has full control over everything that is presented to him. In short, it assumes an individual has way more power than what they actually might have.

So, while this model might render fruits, this simplification obscures some of the most interesting aspects of (tech) decision making. In fact, according to Allison it neglects the power of bureaucracy (the maker of policy is not one calculating decision maker but is rather a conglomerate of large organizations and actors) and also the power of internal political bargaining amongst individuals with different preferences and goals within an organization. In other words, the “rational actor” approach is simplistic and can be harmful to our quest of making these companies behave differently. Moreover, in offering or accepting rational actor explanations about technology companies' (or any organization really) behavior we are assuming that they can be understood by analogy with the acts of individuals (the classic “what are the CEO's/President's/State's interests” question, ingrained in the idea that “a corporation is an individual”).

Allison in his “essence of decision” (1971) book proposes two alternative frameworks to try and capture the more complex reality of decision making within big organizations. His first view relates to what he calls “organizational process model” (also called “bureaucratic) where (1) organizations are considered black boxes that obscure standard processes and highly differentiated decision making structures across the organization and; (2) large acts result from innumerable and often conflicting smaller actions by individuals at various levels in the service of a variety of only partially compatible conceptions of rational goals and organizational goals. In other words, decision making is a function of bureaucratic patterns of behavior.

If we were to apply this framing to Facebook's decision making we would have to ask: from what organizational context and processes did these (e.g. content moderations, AI implementation) decision emerge? Based on this, we can absolutely say that there are some decisions that can be explained as outputs from standard patterns of behavior. For example, on any content moderation decision it is valuable to understand that Facebook has a system of double review's called Cross Check by which of high profile pages is gets a mistake prevention layer. Or, more generally, that content moderation (for the most part) happens in an orderly fashion (flowing from outsourcing partners to internal teams), following global Community Standards enforcement. This is the vision Facebook tries to make sure prevails because it lands better with the public: “we apply our standards through standard procedures”. Thus, the process must be (or at least appear) fair, legitimate and understandable to the public. There's however, much to be understood about the actual channels (Is the content reviewed by a human, machine or both? If there is more than one review, which teams are involved?) and operational procedures (how are the reviews done? What do reviewers look at and why?) that lead to the final decisions being made – this is where the value of this model comes to shine.

While the bureaucratic model might be great to help us understand 99% of Facebook's content moderation decisions, there's the thorny 1% of high profile decisions (e.g. de-platforming Trump, flagging (or not) fake news on high profile politician pages, etc.) that cannot be explained by understanding standard modes of operation. This is where the final framework, the political bargaining model, comes into play. This framework allows us to wrestle with the idea that decisions come from internal negotiations between players in an organization (Mark Zuckerberg vs. Monika Bickert vs. the Oversight Board, etc.). Indeed in this model we should be looking at what kind of bargaining among players yielded the critical decisions and actions (e.g. did Joel Kaplan really use his influence to stop misinformation flags on right wing accounts in the US?). In this framework, the concepts that structure this model are: the perceptions, motivations, positions, power and strategic maneuvers by the players in question. In fact, the key value of this model lays in identifying “the game” in which an issue will arise, the relevant players and their relevant power and skill. However, the idea that an organization as large and powerful as Facebook (or any government) might take decisions based on unstructured power dynamics is frightening because that means that important decisions for democracy and free speech online are subject to events that are way more random than we would possibly like.

Interestingly though, none of this models by itself is able to explain the full picture. Allison said it himself: relying on any of the models separately might render incomplete and misleading analyses. While the actor model was useful to understand State's behaviors in the foreign policy arena, it fell short in helping us realize the real power dynamics behind the decisions being made. We should demand that tech investigators and journalists strive to find ways to supplement the rational actor model with visions from these two other models to build a full picture. Yes, this might be messier and more complex but will be way closer to the truth of these companies' functioning.

Indeed, while the rational actor and the bureaucratic model might offer some sense of comfort by leading us to believe that decisions are governed by rational interests or standard organizational behavior, the truth is that policy and decision making processes are far more complex than that, as proven by the political bargaining framework. Understanding (1) the key decision points/players; (2) path dependencies and; (3) organizational and personal goals, will lead us closer to figuring out what is wrong with how we govern and understand tech. Because ultimately, the better we understand their essence of decision-making, the better we will be able to predict their behavior in reaction to new legislation or civil society pressures.

Most fundamentally though, it is probable that “the essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the observer – often, indeed, to the decider himself ... There will always be the dark and tangled stretches in the decision-making process – mysterious even to those who may be most intimately involved.” In other words, it is very much possible that we give organizations and individuals much more explanatory power than they actually deserve. Accepting this not easy. We crave ways to simplify the world in order to cope with it. What is worse, we can't even trust companies or individuals to be rational or follow standard procedures. Reality is messy and understanding that complexity can definitely help figure out how to potentially do better governance, regulation and ethics in the world of tech by helping devise the right behavioral incentives (i.e. the ones that really matter for high level decision making).

See you in another adventure,

W.

#thoughts

Check out my Spotify playlist of (most of) Evans' music ordered chronologically (+1100 songs, 101 hours worth of music): The Quiet Genius – Bill Evans

“I believe that all people are in possession of what might be called a 'universal musical mind'.” – Bill Evans

I've been reading “Bill Evans: How my heart sings”, by Peter Pettinger (Yale University Press) Considered one of the finest jazz pianists in history, Evans' story is breathtaking. From his humble origins in Plainfield, NJ to his career in New York at the Village Vanguard and his European concerts (Paris, London and Switzerland being very prolific for him).

Bill's story shows us a quiet genius, a white kid in a predominantly Black setting. The one who made it not because he was the best performers or the most charming with the audiences but because of his musical intelligence and particular style. In fact, his compositions have become standards (e.g. Waltz for Debby to name one and Blue in Green to name another) and his playing style has been immortalized in the most successful jazz record of all time, Kind of Blue.

Most of all, for me, Evans' career is a reminder that life isn't perfect. A souvenir that life takes, sometimes, sharp unexpected turns both for good and bad. His musical life was tainted by heroin addiction – something that he learnt while on Miles Davis' band and later shared with his favorite jazz drummer Philly Joe Jones – and sore losses, like the passing of bass player Scott LaFaro whom he adored. However, he counted with great partners that helped him throughout hardship: Orrin Keepnews, producer for Riverside Records, and Helen Keane his manager and producer during his later years. In fact, one can see that Evans was someone who appreciated people in his life for he wrote several tunes for them. For example, “Re: Person I Know” for Orrin Keepnews (an anagram of his name); “Waltz for Debby” (for his niece); “Peri's Scope” (for one of his girlfriends); “One for Helen” (for his manager).

He was a virtuoso. Anecdotes of him recall Evans playing entire sets without using one of his hands because of some heroin shot gone wrong. But most interestingly, he thought critically and was interested in a varied range of subjects, from humor to philosophy. In fact, Evans even compared jazz improvisation to Japanese visual art on his sleeve note for Kind of Blue. However, when he played, he was the opposite of cerebral: he really hunched over the piano (he said his head had a special position in which it connected better with the instrument) and let his whole body play his harmonically melodious lines.

Over his career Bill worked with some of the most famous names in jazz. George Russell, Chet Baker, Julian ' Cannonball' Adderley, Charles Mingus and Art Farmer. He was praised for having changed the way trios functioned and credited with consistently leaving out notes on the low end of chords to make space for a more melodic functioning (instead of mainly time-keeping) of bass.

Beyond all critical acclaim, Bill Evans has allowed me to get closer to one of my favorite styles of music: jazz. I've been an aficionado for a long while, first because of my mother (she's the one that got me into jazz as a kid) but then because of my incursion into playing the Saxophone. However, I was one of these people that felt didn't fit anywhere. I wasn't knowledgeable enough to keep up with hardcore jazz fanatics: they made me feel stupid for not knowing all the theory behind it. And I wasn't a proper jazz musician either because my Saxophone skills were never that good. It is only now, a couple of decades later that I found acceptance and peace in enjoying jazz from the perspective of feeling and intuition thanks to one of Bill's quotes:

“It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling.” – Bill Evans

His music made him the recipient of seven Grammy Awards and 31 nominations.

Bill, the quiet genius of jazz, I salute you.

See you in another adventure,

W.

#music

Here's my Mondo Grosso Spotify playlist and below you will find some of my comments on ten of my favorite Mondo Grosso songs.

(1) Spirit of Voyage with its mystical, almost eery, piano introduction sets the stage of what's to come. Percussion and bass come in and then you realize you are in the world of 90s acid jazz. When the horns and the vibraphone come in you feel you're in Young Disciple's, Galliano, Corduroy or even Brand New Heavies territory. From Japan comes out a very European acid jazz sound that makes you vibe.

(2) Closer, the homonym song to the 2004 album, a collaboration with the vocalist Monday Michiru, drags you in on a more R&B vibe with some Virtual Insanity type lyrics:

People don't really communicate with each other anymore ... the world is getting so virtual and people don't feel the pain anymore. We need to be touched to ease the pain, this is why the title of the album is called closer.

(3) A reinterpretation of Paulinho da Costa's Carnival of Colors is clearly a different jam. Borrowing from MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira), Samba and Bossa Nova colors, we hear a lively tune that might be perfect for a cocktail evening with some friends. Maybe even a hint to the Japanese diaspora in Brazil or even their fascination with their culture. To be thoroughly enjoyed with an Aperol at hand. The mastery of Shinichi Osawa as a great sampler – a music library – shines through with the choice of cover.

(4) 100% Woman Overtime from the Closer album follows the same R&B/Soul vibes as its homonym. The rhythm is moved forward by a thick bassline and accentuated in the off-beats of the percussion. The vocals are sweet but they contrast with lyrics that speak of the hardships of being a woman in the modern world: having to balance all aspects of life plus the expectations of society. 'Working hard to be a 100% woman overtime'.

(5) From 1995's 'Born Free', 'Move into the night' is a decade early to show some of the motives that we see in 'Closer'. The drums, bassline and vocal combo appears clearly here too. A different, move up-beat, less R&B like tune sounds refreshing within the mix.

(6) 'I can't go for that' from 'Closer' is one of the best re-interpretations that I've heard from this Hall & Oates classic. A stripped down version of the hook and a completely different more down-tempo vibe, this is another one that might go down easy to unwind after a hard day at work. It somehow still preserves the spirit of the original, in spite of only relying on the keyboards and sampled drums to drag you along.

(7) 'Invisible Man', from the 2004 single album, in its Mellow Yellow version sound to me like an instant 90s Acid Jazz classic. The elements of hip hop plus the horn section make up for an absolute jam. The type that you want to listen to when you are walking down the street at night. The original 'Invisible Man' seems flat in comparison to this version which, in ways, is simpler but more essential.

(8) The 'Invisible Man' album also includes a great tune called 'TREE, AIR, AND RAIN ON THE EARTH' that first appeared on their MARBLE album. In this version reminds me of Jamiroquai's 'Emergency on Planet Earth' – maybe because of the title (?) or maybe because of the bass, backup vocals and flute solo in Revolution 1993. The Brazilian style of 'TREE, AIR AND ...' bridge that sounds like a Pagode and the incorporation of a flute and a keyboard (Rhodes?) solo creates a great jazz ambiance.

(9) 'YELLOW NOTE (LIVE VERSION)' from their European Expedition Album is the most hard core acid jazz that you will find in this list. Sax, samples, percussion, keyboard and bassline all working tight to create a feel for the classic cadence and syncopation that you would expect from the most 'jazz' within a genre that borrows of soul/funk/hip-hop.

(10) We close with 'STAR SUITE (Shelter Album Mix). This is essentially music that tells bildungsroman story of a girl who rebels against her original culture only to find who she truly is again in the middle of the madness of the modern world. A beauty to listen intently to, for its over 10 minutes of duration.

See all of you in another adventure,

W.

#music