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DL 217

Global Speech Conflicts

Published: October 5, 2019 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to Digitally Literate, issue 217. Your go-to source for insightful content on education, technology, and the digital landscape.

🔖 Key Takeaways

Hi all, welcome to issue 217 of Digitally Literate. My name is Ian O'Byrne.

Thank you for stopping by. Please subscribe if you would like this to show up in your email inbox.

This week I posted another episode of the Technopanic Podcast which I co-host with Kristen Turner. Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, PocketCasts, Stitcher…or the podcast catcher of your choice. You can also review all episodes here.

📺 Watch

A state task force recommended that Vermont invest in social media monitoring software, in the hopes of flagging warning signs by would-be school shooters. But whether or not officials take up the strategy on a statewide scale, plenty of districts are already using these technologies.

The market for student surveillance software has grown rapidly despite no independent evaluation proving it reduces violence or self-harm. We're normalizing mass monitoring of children based on marketing claims rather than evidence.

📚 Read

Mark Zuckerberg spoke at Georgetown University about the importance of protecting free expression. I've shared the link above with the hope that you'll use Hypothesis to openly annotate and comment on the full text from Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg has been on a "transparency tour" since the 2016 election in the U.S. Some believed that this was his attempt to run for public office. Increasingly we're seeing that this is instead an attempt to stem the tide of bad press, questionable decisions, and obfuscation surrounding the social network.

The response to the address was generally negative, and indicated that Zuckerberg generally doesn't understand free speech in the 21st century. This thread from David Kaye is also an excellent deep dive into the address.

His framing (or lack thereof) of these freedoms is terribly important as they slowly begin to seep into how we view individual and collective rights. When the person controlling a platform used by billions conflates his company's interests with free speech principles, the confusion serves those interests.

In a since-deleted tweet, Daryl Morey, General Manager of the Houston Rockets expressed support for the protestors in Hong Kong.

This tweet inserted the National Basketball Association (NBA) into the heated debate at the center of the Hong Kong protests. Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta quickly distanced the organization from Morey's comments. The NBA issued an initial statement that was roundly criticized by U.S. politicians on both sides of the aisle for choosing financial interests over human rights.

This raises questions about whether or not high-profile personalities (or average citizens) should be able to speak out on social issues.

As the protests continue in Hong Kong, other US companies are finding themselves caught up in the controversy.

Blizzard, the developer of Diablo and World of Warcraft among other notable games, has faced a growing backlash since it removed pro player Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai from a Hearthstone tournament and future events. His ban came two days after he showed support for the Hong Kong protests in a postgame interview on Oct. 6. Blizzard seems to be doubling down by automatically banning anyone that posts anything pro-Hong Kong in their chat feeds.

Apple removed an app from its App Store for HKmap.live after facing intense criticism after authorities in Hong Kong said protesters were using it to attack the police in the semiautonomous city.

Once again, this story sits at the crux of the complicated mechanics that exist as multinational businesses seek to negotiate and create a middle ground between different cultures.

Andrew Keane Woods pulls all of these threads together in this expansive post. Woods discusses the challenges that exist as we live in a globally connected marketplace.

There is no easy answer to the very difficult question of if or how American firms should do business in China. But, unfortunately, resolving this question is made harder because the debate is marred by a general lack of analytical clarity and is instead being driven by uninformed moral outrage, free speech absolutism, and American exceptionalism.

We seem to have this problem where we try to instill our own stances into the culture of other groups. This discussion is important as we consider these multinational corporations and technology developers that are monetizing our data, and impacting the privacy and security of users globally.

🔨 Do

Autumn Caines and Erin Glass had a great piece in Educause Review this week that sounds the call for not only better security around student data, but also the need to empower youth to critically evaluate data privacy practices and policies.

They suggest asking the following questions as you consider your data usage:

🤔 Consider

You must have confidence in your competence.

Elijah Cummings

Cummings' words resonate in a week focused on speech and censorship. Speaking truth—whether about climate, human rights, or data privacy—requires believing your voice matters. The climate kids, the Hong Kong protesters, the scholars questioning surveillance all share this: confidence that their competence to speak is earned and essential.

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