On the Internet, No One Knows Your Revolution is a Dog

Colin Delany | April 23, 2009 - 1:55pm | 14 comments | Email This!

Cross-posted on e.politics

Remember the "Twitter Revolution" in Moldova? Even as it was unfolding, the Twitter angle was being downgraded in the face of evidence that the Moldovan protesters seemed to be using just about EVERY online tool available -- from Facebook to text messages to blogs and email newsletters -- to organize and spread the word (of course, it didn't help when it turned out that very few people in Moldova are even ON Twitter). Now, according to The Post and Slate's Anne Applebaum, the very "revolution" itself is being called into question, and online social media may have been used by the state security apparatus to misinform both locals and outside observers about what was going on.

Applebaum contends that the explosion of apparent support for Moldovan students and other protesters (10,000+ people showed up when only around a thousand were expected) was at least in part due to the work of agents provocateurs, who also led or pushed the protesters to break into government offices and plant a Romanian flag on the parliament building (Romania is apparently the national bugbear for pro-Russian Moldovans). Even Twitter gave some hints that this was what was really going on -- I've seen reprints of several tweets purportedly from Moldovans warning that not everyone posting online was whom they claimed to be.

So here's the lesson, and it's an old one: on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog, or in this case that your "revolution" is one. Just as the 'net can make a tiny organization look huge, it can also mask official or establishment voices -- for instance, how many "grassroots" issue campaigns in U.S. politics are actually funded and organized by corporate interests? Quite a few, and such "astroturfing" (think fake grass) tactics don't seem to be going away any time soon, even though they can backfire if such a campaign's true nature becomes public knowledge.

Online, we HAVE to question everything we read or hear unless it comes from a trusted source, and even then it never hurts to cross-reference (note: Wikipedia can be wrong). When outsiders are attempting to follow an event like the protests in Moldova, all we have are the messages we see -- we're not on the ground where things are happening, we don't know the individual voices and their motives, and we can't check the "facts" directly or easily. In some ways, we're PRIMED to receive disinformation, and Twitter might actually be a perfect way to spread it, since Twitter accounts are functionally anonymous, hashtags allow easy aggregation and 140-character messages seem almost designed to give bits of information without context.

Yes, online applications like Twitter and social networking sites have immense potential to raise high the low and bring down the mighty, but the tools ultimately don't care who uses them: dictators and demagogues have access to the same technologies as democrats and and the dispossessed, and they probably have more resources to put behind them. As Applebaum suggests, this might not be the last time we see a "revolution" that's actually being manipulated through the very social media channels outsiders are hoping to use to follow and support it.

– cpd

Featured: 

Comments

A rather one-sided presentation, don't you think?

by JonPincus on April 24, 2009 - 3:11pm

There's a range of opinions about the role of Twitter in the Moldovan revolution, with Evgeny Morozov, Dimutru of Political Moldova and I on one side; Ivan Boothe, Daniel Bennett and Ann Applebaum along with Colin on another. AK of Sublime Oblivion, Ethan Zuckerman in the middle.

Colin links to himself, Ann and Daniel but not anybody who sees things differently than he does or anybody on the scene. He also doesn't link to any Eastern European opinions. By leaving them out, he presents a very biased view.

It's hard to believe he isn't at least aware of Ethan's and Evgeny's work, and I'm sure he's read one of my threads that links out to these other sources. It's very shoddy writing.

And especially with protesters being beaten and going underground, with at least one person in police custody, calling the revolution a dog is deeply insulting.

From #pman's pespective, it becomes a lot clearer if you think of a Twitter hashtag as a place or a tribe. The same's true for for the Moldovan protestors in general. That doesn't doesn't make it okay.

At the #polc09 reception I talked with Colin about why his language is being interpreted as hate speech directed at Twitter users. His position was roughly that he didn't see it that way, so anybody he offended was wrong, and he didn't care what they thought. This is another good example, and it's disappointing to see techPresident publish it.

jon

—

jon -- http://talesfromthe.net/jon

Meanwhile, on Twitter

by JonPincus on April 25, 2009 - 12:40pm

I tweeted my comment to Colin and Micah and they didn't reply. Maybe they're not tracking they're @-messages on Twitter. Maybe they are and haven't thought through how it looks when they don't even bother to acknowledge my existence. Sigh.

jon

—

jon -- http://talesfromthe.net/jon

The Twitter Revolution

by punctdevedere on April 26, 2009 - 1:05pm

Here's the deal: On April 7th there were basically two events.

The first, in the morning, was a massive, spontaneous and peaceful demonstration by 15,000 - 30,000 young people against the falsification of election results by the ruling Communist party. Note that it wasn't a revolution, just a demonstration. Also note that it was organised using a variety of media, including Twitter.

The organisers declared the end of the protest around lunchtime. It was at this time that the agents provocateurs from the security services and Communist-allied PPCD took over, encouraging the crowd to stay on the streets and vent their anger against the Presidency and Parliament buildings. Even this would best be described as a revolt, rather than a revolution.

Had there been a true revolution, it would have been far better organised (e.g. control of the broadcast media and of the national leadership would have been secured)

my perspective

by cezarmaroti on April 26, 2009 - 1:15pm

The initial protest, on 6th April in the evening was a veritable one. I have friends that attended. I also got some messages on twitter, facebook, yahoo messenger about this protest. The next day, on 7th, it was also a veritable protest, but then there were provocateurs infiltrated and they provoked the violence. Twitter was a reliable source of information between 5-8 April. After that twitter was infiltrated with phantom accounts. There is a debate about the planned protest on 10 April. There were messages inviting people in #pman. But there were also messages that were saying that it's a trap by the government. The Government had already started to arrest and to torture people. There were rumors that they were looking for a reason to get more people arrested. And this is why the protest was canceled.

Twitter was very important in the first part of the events - 5-8 April. After the speed of the events slowed down, twitter lost it's importance. And the communication moved to other platforms that offer more structure. I created a group on facebook and there are almost 20.000 members. I am sure that there were other initiatives on other platforms.

I was one of the first people to observe that there are very few people from Moldova on twitter. The truth is in the middle. There were only ~100 that specified their location as being Moldova. But there were many more that simply did not disclosed their location. And also there were a lot of new accounts created in that period. You can observe this phenomena with many other events. @oprah attracted at least 0,5 million new accounts. armin van buuren #asot400 attracted also thousands of new users. Most of these users did not have a lot of information in the profile. I think that it's impossible to know exactly how many people in Moldova used twitter. But I think that twitter played a very important role in the events. It was not for sure the only platform used. But it was one of the most active during 5-8 April.

Cezar
www.twitter.com/cezarmaroti
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Support-Moldova/97651945411

So sorry you're upset

by Micah L. Sifry on April 26, 2009 - 4:49pm

Jon--

Maybe lighten up a bit? Colin's entitled to a witty title, and he's hardly calling the Moldova revolution(?)/demonstration(?) a dog as much as he's saying, not everything on the net is as it appears to be. Hate speech? I don't see it. Perhaps you can enlighten us.

I think he's entitled to his opinion, and in general with our bloggers here I'm inclined to trust their judgment and err on the side of publishing rather than suppressing various points of view. On top of that, Colin is making a well-reasoned argument about one of the pitfalls of online activism. Colin doesn't have to cite every other major piece on this topic to express an opinion about it, and he's pointing out a serious issue, that the #pman "tribe" maybe wasn't nearly as cohesive or trustworthy as one would have hoped. Instead of calling that hate speech why not engage his argument?

Micah

Thanks for the reply

by JonPincus on April 27, 2009 - 1:23am

Micah,

I'm not particularly upset, just disappointed.

What I hear you saying is that I'm overreacting, you don't find Colin's analogy insulting, and even if some people find it offensive it's fine because it's a witty title. I also hear you saying that techPresident doesn't have any problems with a blogger selectively choosing sources, or discussing international issues without citing the opinions of people familiar with the countries and cultures he's writing about.

Good to know.

> why not engage his argument?

I did -- or more accurately, I let experts people know about it and encouraged them to, which is why there are now several excellent comments in the thread describing the subtleties of the situation.

jon

—

jon -- http://talesfromthe.net/jon

Disinformation on #pman

by JonPincus on April 27, 2009 - 2:03am

Great perspectives, Cezar and punctdevedere, thanks much for sharing!

Twitter was a reliable source of information between 5-8 April. After that twitter was infiltrated with phantom accounts.

A few links on this:

- Dumitru Minzarari's Twitter, the two-edged sword discusses disinformation being repeatedly posted to the channel.

- my Skittles and infowar: #pman, disinformation, and trolls features a great tweet by Cezar describing the situation, discusses it more generally in the context of other Twitter experiences -- and surveys the techniques other hashtags have used to defend against trolling and disinformation.

- Gabriel Radic describes an experiment where disinformation was first retweeted, then quickly debunked. of course this was pretty blatant disinformation, but it's still interesting.

On the whole, I was impressed with how well #pman self-organized to spread the word that there was questionable information floating around. During #amazonfail, by contrast, a lot of people -- including Wired -- fell for a troll's plausible claim that he had engineered the whole thing. Oops.

jon

PS: One of the loudest sources of questionable information during the #pman activity was SuperGodiva, who repeatedly described the protests as a #Zionist/#Rothschild conspiracy. A government agent? Maybe not. Today, I saw a post from SuperGodiva describing Swine Flu as a #Zionist/#Rothschild consipiracy. Sometimes a troll is just a troll ...

—

jon -- http://talesfromthe.net/jon

Posts are beginnings, not endings, of conversation

by Micah L. Sifry on April 27, 2009 - 9:33am

Jon--

We're all selective, all the time, about what sources and opinions we deem credible. The beauty of comment threads is that's where the story gets enriched exactly by this kind of (hopefully reasonable) argument. In my view, Colin (not just "any blogger") is an expert on e-politics (heck, he owns the domain!) and the fact that he trusts some sources over others is interesting. Readers can make up their own minds.

Micah

Sorry to miss the fun!

by Colin Delany on April 27, 2009 - 10:13am

Hey guys, I've been off earning a living the last few days and dropped off the grid (had designs due this morning, which I'm fixin' to pack off to the client). Jon, when someone doesn't reply, they're not always slapping you in the face -- sometimes they're just off taking care of their own business.

To the basic point -- neither you nor I was in Moldova. I don't know what happened there. You don't know what happened there. All we know is what people tell us -- and we don't really know who they are and what their motives are (unless you have a web of known, close and trusted Moldovan sources that you haven't told us about).

I don't always agree with Ann Applebaum's columns, but she IS an experienced journalist with contacts all through Eastern Europe, and I'm inclined to give some credence to her reporting. If she's wrong, then I'm off base on the specifics of this case. Oh well; won't be the first time -- if I got worried every time I was wrong about something, I'd be cowering under the bed all day. As for the broader point about political actors on the internet stage not always being whom they appear to be, can that possibly NOT be true? Just think Wal-Mart and the trouble THEY got into for sock-puppetry.

And as for the title, guess what -- writers pick titles that sing or that sell, and in this case it did both. I'm sorry if it offended anyone (though so far no one other than you seems to actually be offended, and I think it's mighty kind of you pick up that cross for the Moldovan rebels), but if I were worried every time somebody got offended by something I said, I'd be right back under that bed. Last time I checked, the role of the writer (or the artist) WAS to upset the applecart...

-- cpd

—

Colin Delany
e.politics
http://www.epolitics.com

BTW, re: hate speech

by Colin Delany on April 27, 2009 - 10:23am

By the way, I missed the bit about Twitter and "hate speech" the first time I read the thread. Um, really? Critiquing a piece of technology and how it's used is "hate speech?" So, if I don't like, say, Maroon 5 and write a piece critical of their latest song, it's "hate speech" about Maroon 5 fans? That's essentially what you're saying, and that's bullshit, pure and simple.

I went to college during the PC (as in, political correctness) age, and I got real tired real fast of people telling me what I could or could not say. You may want to live in cotton-coated world of "safe speech;" I'd rather call good good and bad bad as I see 'em. If somebody disagrees, so be it. If that's hate, then I'm a Grade A Number One Hater.

—

Colin Delany
e.politics
http://www.epolitics.com

BTW, re: that POLC discussion Jon and I had

by Colin Delany on April 27, 2009 - 12:14pm

Dammit, now I'm the guy niggling away at the details of a blog comment. Carping, even! (Just went to thesaurus.com, couldn't you guess).

About that POLC discussion we had: what I said was, "if someone MISREADS what I say and gets offended, that's really not my problem." I wondered if you'd heard me correctly at the time, so I was careful to make a mental note of what I'd said (I try to choose my words with extra precision at moments like those, the product no doubt of a youth mis-spent in the Texas Legislature). For an elaboration of why I said "misreads," please check out Strategy or Tool? On the Metaphysics of Twitter (ah, shameless self-promotion -- know you no bounds?).

More broadly, it's not that I don't care what people think, and please know that I don't beat puppies (i.e., I am not intentionally and knowingly cruel, unless I'm really missing something about myself, and in that case please refer me to a licensed mental health care professional immediately). But words only hurt if we let them, unless it's secrets we're telling.

And with that I shall bid this conversation adieu, adjust my monocle and top hat, and harrumphantly return to my dogmatic slumbers.

--cpd

—

Colin Delany
e.politics
http://www.epolitics.com

On getting local perspectives

by JonPincus on April 27, 2009 - 12:08pm

No, I don't have a network of known, trusted, sources from Moldova. However, I do have access to people who do ... so I tweeted them and asked their opinions. They replied, on Twitter and in this thread. You could have done the same.

though so far no one other than you seems to actually be offended

really? what's your basis for that? i have a feeling that what you actually mean is that nobody other than me has directly let you know that they're offended. did it occur to you that i might be speaking on behalf of others as well as myself?

—

jon -- http://talesfromthe.net/jon

Exactly

by JonPincus on April 27, 2009 - 12:18pm

If you say or write things that you don't see as hate speech, and others "misread" them by interpreting it differently and are offended, you don't care.

Your attitude is very similar to some my older relatives who used to use all kinds of words that are now regarded as hate speech -- without intending them that way, because when they grew up it was just how they and their friends talked. Guess what: people were offended.

But words only hurt if we let them

It's amazing how often white guys near the circles of power say stuff like that.

jon

—

jon -- http://talesfromthe.net/jon

When did criticism become "hate speech"?

by Micah L. Sifry on April 27, 2009 - 1:27pm

Jon--

This is getting silly. You keep referring to "hate speech" when all that Colin has done, at worst, is criticized Twitter and people who are enamored with its organizing capabilities for perhaps being a bit too enthusiastic.

Here's the Wikipedia definition of "hate speech":

Hate speech is a term for speech intended to degrade a person or group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, ideology, social class, occupation, appearance (height, weight, hair color, etc.), mental capacity, and any other distinction that might be considered by some as a liability.

Nothing Colin has written comes close to this.

Micah