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Eileen Donahoe is Executive Director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator at Stanford University, and former U.S. ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council. You can follow her @EileenDonahoe.

Democracies face an existential threat: information is being weaponized against them with digital tools. Although propaganda is not new, the speed, scale and extraterritorial reach of digital disinformation makes it different in kind from propaganda of old. Digital mechanisms of manipulationfrom bot armies and clickbait to micro targetingare being mastered by authoritarian and anti-democratic forces, outpacing democratic societies capacities to protect themselves.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of this threat is that information itself is the weapon. Information has always been the lifeblood of democracy. For democracy to work, free and well-informed citizens must actively engage in civic discourse. Digital disinformation is destroying the prospect of democratic engagement by well-informed citizens.

Given the digital disinformation campaigns in the lead-up to BREXIT and the recent U.S. and French presidential elections, democratic governments now are seized with defending against disinformation operations by foreign governments seeking to disrupt their democratic processes. Until recently, many national security experts were focused on cyber threats to critical infrastructure that could have a physical consequences (e.g. a cyberattack causing something to blow up). Few anticipated that the target of cyberattack would be the civic infrastructure of our democraciesnot only voting machines, but public discourse around our elections. Fewer envisioned that the preferred vector of cyberattack would be disinformation.

But an ominous risk also arises when democratic governments responding to digital disinformation undermine their own democratic values. Germanys new NetzDG law, also known as the Network Enforcement Act or social media law, aims to eradicate hate speech and propaganda on digital platforms. It imposes steep fines (up to 50 million) for failure to take down evidently criminal content within twenty-four hours. The motivation for this legislation was to protect the quality of discourse necessary to sustain democracy, but its unintended effects risk greater damage to democracy than the original threat.

As private sector platforms like Facebook, Google, and Twitter have become primary sources of information and vehicles for expression, they effectively function as the public square for civic engagement. Their algorithms affect their users access to information and how they form political opinions. This has created conceptual confusion about the roles and responsibilities of social media platforms in democracy. The German NetzDG Act manifests this confusion.

In one swoop, the German government handed over judicial authority for determining criminality to the private sector. It simultaneously encouraged censorship, by incentivizing platforms to err on the side of taking down flagged content even if not criminal. Finally, it eroded the core concept of limited platform liability for third-party speech, which has facilitated the free flow of information on the Internet and democratized distribution of content globally.

In effect, the German bill got the target wrong: Platforms should not be liable for speech posted by users, (but should take down criminal speech based on a court order.) Platforms should be accountable for their own algorithms when they push information to users to monetize attention. The German approach retreats from governing responsibility and undermines its own commitment to freedom of expression on the Internet.

This is especially true when Russia starts holding up the German law as a model for its own censorship efforts. Democratic values are at risk of serious erosion when Moscow looks at Berlin for inspiration to regulate internet content. Within two weeks of the adoption of the German law, the Russian Duma proposed a copy-cat bill, with multiple explicit references to the German law as its model. The Russian version, like the German original, compels social media companies to take down vaguely defined illegal content within twenty-four hours or face severe penalties. The official justification for the law was to prevent use of digital networks for illegal purposes. In Russia, this can mean anything that challenges the authoritarian rule of Vladimir Putin. Russias cynical use of Germanys example should raise alarm bells for all democratic actors.

Democratic governments concerned about new digital threats need to find better algorithms to defend democratic values in the global digital ecosystem. Democracy has always been hard. It requires an exquisite balance between freedom, security and democratic accountability. This is the profound challenge that confronts the worlds liberal democracies as they grapple with foreign disinformation operations, as well as home-grown hate speech, extremism, and fake news. Fear and conceptual confusion do not justify walking away from liberal values, which are a source of security and stability in democratic society. Private sector and government actors must design algorithms for democracy that simultaneously optimize for freedom, security, and democratic accountability in our digital world.

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Protecting Democracy from Online Disinformation Requires Better Algorithms, Not Censorship - Council on Foreign Relations (blog)

President Donald Trump tweeted that "the Fake News should listen to what [Jerry Falwell] had to say." | Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

By DIAMOND NAGA SIU

08/21/2017 10:36 AM EDT

President Donald Trump railed against fake news Monday after Jerry Falwell Jr. defended the presidents comments on the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Jerry Falwell of Liberty University was fantastic on @foxandfriends, Trump tweeted. The Fake News should listen to what he had to say. Thanks Jerry!

Story Continued Below

Falwell Jr., the universitys president, went on Fox to praise Trumps comments on white supremacists and counter-protesters that clashed in Charlottesville.

I think he was very clear who the culprits were, because he called out the Nazis, the white supremacists, the KKK members by name, Falwell Jr. said. He didnt call out the ones who committed violence on the other side by name he never mentioned Antifa, he made it clear that there was no moral equivalency between the two.

Falwell Jr. also said that, as someone who knows Trump well, he could attest that the president does not have a racist bone in his body.

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Trump also posted another tweet five minutes later to thank a follower that defended him, while using it as another opportunity to further his point.

Thank you, Trump said to the account admiring how he never backs down from people trying to take him down, the very dishonest Fake News Media is out of control!"

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Trump: Fake news media is 'out of control' - Politico

The last year has seen digital ad spend dominate the marketing conversation and not often for the right reasons. There seems to have been one issue after another, from the YouTube brand safety scandal to Facebooks measurement errors and the media transparency concerns raised by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) report.

What has exacerbated these is the lack of understanding among marketers when it comes to their media investments, which was clear in the reaction to all three issues. Those that pulled their ads from YouTube seemed to have no idea how their ads could have appeared next to content from white supremacists. Similarly, few had any idea about agency kickbacks, with most claiming ignorance.

And very few have openly admitted there is a problem. Procter & Gamble (P&G) is one of barely a handful of brands to have admitted to errors and to have been vocal about the need for change. Ask any other marketer and they quickly change the subject.

READ MORE: Mark Ritson P&Gs Marc Pritchard has made the biggest marketing speech for 20 years

Unsurprisingly, few in the industry thought anything would actually change. Facebook and Google continue to hoover up digital ad spend, most brands (bar the likes of the Guardian and Marks & Spencer) are back advertising on YouTube and marketers are still increasing digital ad spend.

But quietly and behind the scenes many brands have been changing how they think about digital and stepping up standards and governance.

[Marketers] are attacking these issues from multiple fronts, there is a real effort to transform. And there are three key areas where data and technology, people and capability, and transparency and contracts, says Matt Green, global media and digital marketing lead at the World Federation of Advertisers.

A survey conducted by the WFA found that, for example, 65% have hired internally for positions such as head of programmatic or media directors over the past 12 months. High-profile examples include P&G hiring Gerry DAngelo as global media director in September last year. Tesco also hired its first head of media in April, while Airbnb appointed its first media director in former Unilever marketer Geoff Seeley earlier this month.

In addition, 18% of marketers are planning to bring their programmatic stack in-house, on top of the 18% that have already done so. A further 41% want to take greater control of their spend. Deutsche Telekom, for example, launched an internal project earlier this year to shake up how it works with agencies, data firms and ad tech companies, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Other still are looking to improve standards and governance. Some 53% of those questions said they now have auditing rights written into contracts. Innocent is one of those brands.

Weve put in place more of a robust set of criteria to how we buy media in a digital space, says Jamie Sterry, Innocents head of brand.

Digital advertising is now the single biggest chunk of media spend. According to AA/Warc data, digital accounted for more than half of spend in the UK in the first quarter.

At the same time, the media landscape overall is becoming more complex, meaning brands need more oversight to be sure their spend is as effective as possible.

It is often due to legacy reasons, but there are a significant number of brands that dont have or have very limited in-house media expertise, which given the complexity of the landscape can mean there are significant opportunities to maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of their investments further, says Alex Tait, former Unilever media & marketing services director and founder of Entropy Consulting.

Brands have started to respond to this and are realising the significant P&L opportunity in driving growth but also in realising efficiencies.

In the old days, brands could have a few agencies that managed the process of media planning and buying across (far fewer) broadcast channels. However, now channel fragmentation and developments in technology mean brands need to work across the full customer journey and have relationships with an ever-growing array of players from creative agencies to production houses to Facebook and Google themselves and ad tech players.

This has resulted in a rethink of how brands organise themselves and the need for a more collaborative approach.

Brands have started to respond to this and are realising the significant P&L opportunity in driving growth but also in realising efficiencies.

Brands now need to organise themselves, including their internal teams, agencies, platforms and other third parties, across marketing ecosystems, says Tait.

However, they also need to be able to manage the various issues and opportunities across modern marketing communications including those around the digital supply chain including viewability and transparency in how they work with vendors but also more traditional disciplines including a zero-based budgeting approach to their media planning.

This idea of taking back control is not without its own issues however. Lastminute.com has its own in-house trading desk but admits ensuring internal teams have the right capabilities is a challenge, particularly because these skillsets are in high demand. That is why Alessandra Di Lorenzo, Lastminute.coms chief commercial officer for media and partnerships, believes investing in training and development is critical.

Upskilling existing employees is key to success, she says. For example a bright operations or trafficking expert can make a great audience buying manager.

By developing in-house expertise, brands will be better placed to understand how their budgets are being spend and drive greater transparency right up the supply chain. Likewise, marketers will become smarter about the tools they use to address ad fraud and unsafe content, she says.

As an advanced buyer we require visibility and control over where our spend is going. Our in-house trading desk is crucial to gaining this oversight helping us make substantial savings.

But with brands wanting to take more control where does this leave agencies and the ad tech players? Di Lorenzo believes media agencies can still add a lot of value, particularly for smaller brands and those that are not digitally native. However, she warns agencies that they will need to adapt their offering.

Its up to agencies to find new ways to deliver value to clients, she says.

For Innocent that value comes from partnering with agencies to help navigate the challenges. It is using agencies to help with the issues of fake views and bots, for example.

The WFAs Green also believes agencies will remain important, particularly at major brands that can afford to build in-house capabilities. However, he cautions that at some brand agencies are likely to play more of an execution role rather than be involved in strategy going forward.

By developing in-house expertise, brands will be better placed to understand how their budgets are being spend and drive greater transparency right up the supply chain.

I still think agencies have a strong role to play in planning and buying and most clients agree with that. They will need agencies, not least if theyre a global advertiser because there is a need for external resources if you are selling all over the world. But those roles and responsibilities can move around and agencies may shrink they could be reduced to execution only. But in most cases there is a role for agencies, he says.

He also expects to see a shakedown in the ad tech world because as clients bring in internal expertise and education side improves, brands will be in a better position to exert contractual control and work out exactly what they want.

What is encouraging is that marketers and brands see the challenges and are making changes to deal with them. What that solution looks like will of course vary for different brands but as long as the end result is more efficient and effective digital marketing spend, the route does not matter.

Transparency in the digital advertising world means ensuring that advertisers know exactly where ads are being placed and how much its costing them. As advertisers and brands get more savvy about buying media, the whole industry will have to move towards greater transparency whether thats opening a more honest dialogue with agencies, hiring media directors to oversee relationships, or building their own in-house resources, concludes Di Lorenzo.

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Does the brand crackdown on media transparency go far enough? - Marketing Week

Do you think there is enough tension and division in the United States right now? Are folks hot enough around the collar? Yknow what might cool things off here in Ohio?

Opening up our gun laws to stand your ground so that Ohioans have no duty to retreat and can kill each other whenever they feel under attack. Great. Perfect. Run with it.

Thats apparently the thinking of some Ohio Republicans.

From the Columbus Dispatch:

We want to eliminate your duty to retreat when you are under threat of violent attack, said (state) Sen. Jay Hottinger, R-Newark, a co-sponsor of Senate Bill 180, which was introduced Tuesday. Its difficult to defend yourself when you are running away or your back is turned.

Pending companion House and Senate bills also would expand the so-called Castle Doctrine, which allows people to act in self-defense, without retreating, when in their homes, cars or relatives cars. Under the new legislation, that would be changed to allow people to act in self-defense without retreating when also anywhere a person has a legal right to be, such as on a sidewalk or in a parking lot.

What about wanna-be vigilantes stalking kids armed with Skittles and Arizona tea through their neighborhood, like George Zimmerman did to Trayvon Martin? Legal right to stalk, provoke, and stand ground to kill? This doesnt sound like it will end well; it obviously hasnt before.

But wait! Theres more! From the Dispatch:

The bills also would shift the burden to prosecutors in self-defense cases to prove that criminal defendants did not act to defend themselves, others or their homes. Hottinger said Ohio is the only state in which people must prove they acted in self-defense in using deadly force.

The Republican-controlled House passed a wide-ranging, pro-gun bill in late 2013 that included stand-your-ground language, but the Senate removed the provision amid objections from prosecutors and police.

Ah, yes, but now the law and order party wants to make law enforcement and prosecutors jobs harder against their objections. Makes sense. Or maybe police and prosecutors have changed their minds?

The Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association and the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio have not changed their positions.

Well then.

We think a person who has a safe way of avoiding a confrontation should take advantage of that rather than just stand there and blast away, said John Murphy, executive director of the prosecutors group.

Murphy also said it is reasonable to require a defendant to prove a self-defense claim by a preponderance of evidence a lesser standard than beyond reasonable doubt. Current laws have worked well with no evidence that prosecutors are improperly pursuing charges against people who properly act in self-defense.

And what of the police?

Michael Weinman, governmental affairs director for the FOP, said the organization continues to oppose stand-your-ground legislation.

Even officers have a duty to de-escalate the situation before it gets to the point of using deadly force, he said.

De-escalation, what a concept.

The rest is here:
Stand Your Ground Again Threatening Ohio - Plunderbund

Fact: Youre going to spend a total of five years of your life on social media.

Are you going to waste it lost along with all the mindless drivel of memes and fake news? Or will you make sure that you have a voice, and that you will matter?

If youre like any of the 2.5 billion people out there who use social media, then you probably start your day checking your smartphone or other device for notifications. Yes, were all guilty of this, one time or another. We spend more time on social media than actual socializing. Interestingly, Gen Xers spend more time on social media than Millennials, although teens reportedly spend around nine hours of each day connecting with their friends online.

I think many of us fail to realize what kind of impact social apps already have on our lives. Case in point: Dont you ever wonder why these social networks are able to uncannily and accurately direct advertisements based on your likes and preferences even if you try to be discreet with your online habits?

Thats because social networks are keeping tabs on what you do online.

Anything you say or do on social networks, the places you go, the photos you share and take these are all digital breadcrumbs that make up your online profile. And lets not even get started with how social networks are potentially listening in on what we say.

Accept it, were not merely social network users, but were becoming a product of the social networks that we use. All the major social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and others are free apps but we are paying for it with data and with identities.

In fact, social networks are increasingly asking us to share more and more parts of our lives. Even Messenger services now have a function that lets us share moments of our daily lives.

But how about those of us who merely want to connect, communicate, and keep in touch, all without being tracked?

Heres where I think blockchain technology can make a big difference.

By combining a decentralized consensus mechanism with a private and secure platform for exchanging messages and information, we might be able to finally get connected without the risk of exposing too much to those who own the platforms.

This is just what Obsidian aims to do, with its Obsidian Messenger, a blockchain-based platform for messaging, data sharing, which also supports cryptocurrency as a means of sending money.

According to Peter McClory, CEO of Obsidian, the platform was designed from ground-up with the users privacy in mind. The initial concept for Obsidian was to overcome the weakness that other end-to-end-encryption messenger apps still have today, he tells me. The issue many of these apps (WhatsApp, Signal, Wire, Threema, etc.) have is that none of the well-known secure messengers protect communication metadata effectively enough, that is, who is communicating with whom. This lets observers and/or the company that runs the messenger on their servers create a network of people who exchange messages. Thats especially a problem when user accounts are linked to email addresses or phone numbers.

Thus, instead of having centralized servers owned by the social networking company, Obsidian will run off of nodes run by users with stake, who are distributed across the globe.

An inherent advantage of a distributed system based on the blockchain is that it eliminates the presence of meta-data on centralized servers, which can be used by third parties for tracking, surveillance, or data gathering.

For example, with traditional messaging systems like Facebook Messenger and Apples iMessage, the messages themselves are encrypted from end-to-end. This means no one can read what I am sending to a friend through the platform. However, the meta-data remains in plain sight. This is what other parties can keep track of. They may not know what I am saying, but they can find out that my friend and I had a message exchange and eventually piece things together from there.

Again, for most users, this might not be bothersome, but there are certain scenarios in which total privacy and secrecy are desirable. For example, those behind government censors can benefit from a platform like Obsidian.

In addition, while traditional social networks will require us to login using a valid email or mobile number, a blockchain-based network can provide added anonymity when desired. We completely remove the requirement for user accounts, so that addresses will never contain any information that can be linked to phone numbers, email or other accounts, says McClory.

Perhaps one complaint against social networks is how intrusive they have become in targeting their advertising. I dont mean this by way of popups and banners. Rather, they are intrusive because, as I earlier mentioned, the social networks know the kind of things we like and then tailor fit whatever appears on our feed which are all based on details they have gathered from our lifestyle and online activities.

Now, this might not exactly be a bad thing, since targeted ads can help show you things that are relevant and potentially interesting. However, the discomfort here is how social networks are selling your data to advertisers and third parties, all based on the information they have collected (and which may personally identifiable with you at some point).

Did you know that platforms like Facebook made $9.32 billion in advertising revenue last year? Unfortunately, we get zero share of that. Why do they get all the benefits, again?

The business model is broken or at least it is biased towards those who own the big platforms.

Last year, Steemit, a decentralized social media network community isdisrupting the old way of doing things by rewarding users for good content, all while penalizing fake news and bad submissions. All of this is decided by the users, who have a voice through their upvotes.

Users can post stories or newsand if their submission goes viral, they receive compensation.To date, Steemit amassed more than 100,000 active users and released more than $4 Million to its users.

Another blockchain-based social network, onG.social wants to change this by empowering us users to get rewarded from our content and engagement on social networks. Described as a blockchain-based social hub, onG.social offers cryptocurrency rewards to users and publishers, enabling the community to decide which posts have merit and which are voted down for being fake news.

Major social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter were supposed to be free and open solutions platforms for the people, but they have become increasingly corrupted and regularly censor those voices that have the most important things to say, says Alex Lasarev, CMO at onG.social. In contrast, onG.socials blockchain-based approach was built to resist top-down censorship and control, he adds. It is a platform that encourages its users to speak and spread truth, and down-vote propaganda and lies allowing the community to decide what content thrives or dies.

Ecommerce is currently the darling of venture capitalists and startups, especially in emerging markets, and the combination of social media and ecommerce or social commerce can help accelerate transactions and value. While we have seen payment integration into social platforms like Facebook and Messenger before, its probably obvious that a blockchain-based social network has an advantage of native cryptocurrency support.

Here, networks like onG.social and Obsidian have their inherent advantages, with their own coin onG coin (ONG) and Obsidian (ODN), respectively.

The purpose of these is two-fold actually. First, the active nodes that will actually run the network need some incentive to operate (remember, there are no centralized servers), and this is in the form of cryptocurrency. Second, users will be able to send coins to each other as a matter of payment mechanism.

Running a network doesnt come for free, somebody has to pay to run the hosts, says McClory. Thats why we needed a cryptocurrency, that can pay rewards to node hosts so that they have a financial incentive to run decentralized messaging nodes. Which in turn takes the decentralization a step further, as this removes any financial incentive for the company to run advertising or sell user data (if they had access to that, which they wont).

And if that is not enough, blockchain tech can also integrate crowdfunding into social networks. This can help significantly accelerate crowdfunding campaigns like those on Kickstarter or GoFundMe. Since the cryptocurrency mechanism is built right in, then users can more easily contribute to their desired projects or causes.

The founders of Obsidian, which has currently raised approximately 457 BTC (around $1.89 million) of its target 1,375 BTC ($5.67 million) in its ongoing ICO, believe that the blockchain is the way moving forward, especially for technology companies that wish to leverage on distributed infrastructures. Blockchains are a remedy to fight corruption and fraud in both commercial and government organization, as they make things transparent and almost impossible to forge, says Obsidians McClory.

Meanwhile, onG.social is currently live, and it will move its social network to the blockchain upon completion of its ICO. The coinsale has so far raised 1,032.9800 ETH (around $320,244), with around three weeks to go.

The new generation of social platforms echo each other in saying that the existing environment for social networking is broken. The power all rests in the hands of the platform owner we are just data points they can monetize. Blockchain-powered startups can significantly change the environment for social networks, especially if people start shifting toward decentralized networks, which offer better privacy and security, as well as better control over their content.

McClory says the future is bright for blockchain-based startups. Blockchain technology has already been embraced by a vast range of organizations, and this year the market cap has expanded at a rapid pace, he says.

As mainstream awareness and seamless adoption increases, and as more products like Obsidian take advantages of features unique to the blockchain, the market capitalization will move past the trillion dollar mark for certain. The only question is when that happens, rather than if it does.

This post is part of our contributor series. The views expressed are the author's own and not necessarily shared by TNW.

Read next: This manifesto against Internet addiction can only be viewed offline

View original post here:
Blockchain can make social networks more private and profitable ... - TNW