The Curmudgeon Speaks

We have grandkids varying in age from 3 to 13. We are lucky that all live nearby and we get together as a group quite often. I was a firstborn, but from observing our grandkids I have come to appreciate the frustration of being a younger child. If you are an older child, you are unaware of the options life presents. If you have older siblings, you watch the fun things your older brothers and sisters get to do and it must seem that life is unfair.

We have spent much of our personal lives promoting the educational potential of technology. Following through on our own values, we have given technology devices to our kids and we also invest in apps they can use. Mom and dad have to deal with screen time issues. Grandparents are like that. I am not certain when this investment starts. I let my wife make this decision. However, even without the gifts from grandma the kids find a way to get started. The touch interface just seems intuitive and we watch as our youngest scrolls through pictures, but also navigates to locate the videos she likes to watch and the games she likes to play.

Phones are a different deal. You can get into too much trouble with a phone. When to have a phone is definitely a mom and dad decision. When an older brother or sister has a phone, it can be tough on the younger ones. Some seem to be bothered more than others. Last year we let one of the more frustrated ones have an iPod. Many folks probably don’t even remember the iPod. It looks like a phone with apps, music, and a camera, but it isn’t a phone. Think a phone-sized iPad. This at least worked for family gatherings as it was possible to take photos just like the older ones.

Eventually, the opportunity to communicate must be the one thing you really want to do. It turns out that you can send messages on an iPad and the 7-year old who thinks she is 13 now has the opportunity to really participate in the online world. The problem is mom and dad have put extreme limits on the number of individuals she can contact. The immediate family is OK and so are grandparents. My wife and I have our phones at the ready, are retired, and bear some responsibility for the tech plague we have spread, so we end up being on the end of many of these conversations. We reasoned it could be a great way to develop reading skills. We now get messages early in the morning. I also now know when she gets home from school and when it is time for dinner.

The “this would be a great way to develop reading skills” isn’t going as well as we had hoped. Kids are impatient and smart enough to find ways around the obstacles they face. They know how to do speech to text so they don’t have to actually write. If they can’t understand something rather than attempting to sound out a novel word, they understand that messaging allows the person sending a sound clip so they just ask you to record the word they don’t recognize. Smart, but struggling a little more would probably be the ideal way to approach the task. When she asks you to read the last word (below), this is what she wants.

Our chats don’t have a lot of substance by my standards, but I have to keep telling myself that I have very little experience chatting with anyone so this may be the way all chats go. I am certain that the number of IM’s I have sent this year to a seven-year old will surpass the number I have sent all of my other contacts.

I have learned that emojis and creative spellings are cool. She signs off now by adding a lot of extra e’s to the end of bye. I think this is something she came up with herself.

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

The position of social content services have taken different positions on political ads. Facebook is in even when the ads contain verifiable falsehoods. Interpreted charitably, Facebook does not want to be in the position of assessing factual accuracy. Google and particular YouTube have been pretty vague on their position. Twitter has said they will refuse to accept any political ads.

On the surface, the Twitter position would seem a reasonable position even giving up considerable income in taking a stand. Conservatives argue that they are uniquely damaged by this policy. I can’t say I understand the logic of this position, but it somehow fits with the argued media bias conservatives see everywhere.

Here is the policy as explained by Twitter:

Twitter said ads that discuss elections, candidates, parties and other overtly political content would be prohibited. For ads that reference causes generally and that are placed by organizations and not politicians or political candidates, Twitter said it would place restrictions on them but not ban them outright.

The restrictions included removing advertisers’ ability to target specific audiences, a practice known as “micro targeting.” 

So, you and I are completely free to use Twitter to express our political opinions and to link to sources. Individuals or organizations can take out ads advocating for policies that may be endorsed or rejected by a given party (e.g., climate change). This seems about as reasonable a policy as would be possible.

The major social media services have recently offered their plans for political ads. Twitter is out. Facebook is in.

As I understand the Facebook position, Zuck is arguing that he is pro free speech and suggests that his platform offers the opportunity for those who find fault with an ad to voice their objection. He also has created a database of political ads so that anyone who is interested can investigate just what different candidates claim.

I see the Facebook argument as an attempt to justify the ad revenue generated. It is based on an inaccurate representation of how people use Facebook. My perspective follows:

1. The most serious practical fallacy concerns the suggestion that public discussion of ads will identify false claims. This might be true if all posts were shown to all individuals. This is not what happens on Facebook. People tend to follow individuals who think like they think and Facebook puts items in the feeds Facebook users see based on the priorities Facebook has determined motivate readers. Simply put, Facebook has created a filter bubble that shows people what they want to see.
2. Responses to flawed ads would have to be offered as comments. First, the comments added to an ad would come mostly from those who see the ad (see #1) and most readers don’t bother to review comments anyway.
3. The Facebook ad library is not likely to draw much attention. In case you care interested, here is the link. Even if those concerned take the opportunity to investigate this library and use Facebook to complain would those reading the complaint be likely to be those individuals who were positively influenced by the ad in the first place? Again, not likely.

Tensions are running high as Democrats and Republicans argue about the Trump impeachment inquiry. The most salient accusation at present concerns the alleged efforts of Trump to extort the cooperation of the Ukrainian government in generating evidence of inappropriate use of connections by Mr. Biden’s son. By association, the goal was to reduce the effectiveness of Biden senior as a credible opponent to Trump in the 2020 election. Politicians do investigate their opponents for ways to accuse them of different things, what is different about this situation is the accusation that the President took advantage of his office to use aid promised to the Ukrainians to ward of Russian military action as a trade for evidence that could be used against Biden senior.

Key evidence in this controversy is a transcript released by the White House describing most of a conversation between Trump and Zelinsky (Ukrainian leader). Trump argues this transcript documents a “perfect call” and Democrats in the House argue it is an important part of the evidence showing the use of U.S. funds in an inappropriate way benefiting Trump as politician rather than Trump as leader of the U.S.. Lots of folks have weighed in on this controversy with the intent of influencing public opinion. It can be argued that it would just be better if the public just read the document for themselves rather than relying on folks who might be described as having ulterior motives.

Reading the document should be easy enough to do as nearly every news outlet has provided links to the document. I wonder how many folks have bothered. This situation is different from expecting citizens to review the Mueller report which was long and complex. This is a short read of a transcript of folks talking in simple language.

This situation reminds me of a potential use of technology I think I has great potential. What if folks made the effort to review and comment on something concrete offering a conversation starting point? This is the suggestion made in support of an open source service called hypothes.is. Hypothes.is is what I would describe as a “layering” tool. I have spent most of my time promoting the potential of various layering services for educational purposes. Hypothes.is originated as a tool for public conversation and morphed into a tool with potential for more specific applications. By layering, what I mean is that a freely available online document can be highlighted and annotated without actually changing the original document as provided on a server. The annotations and the original content are separate layers, but individuals who take advantage of a layering service can view the composite. This composite offers an opportunity for discussion and commenting to be shared.

I wondered about comments on the Ukrainian call transcript. For this to work, you need access to text within a web page and not a pdf. You can comment on a pdf, but layering works best if the public view is a static page. I finally found such a presentation of the call USA Today. You get some idea from the following image what my comments would look like on this document.

I offered these comments as “public” so anyone opening this page with Hypothes.is can see my comments, offer their own, etc. Hypothesis also offers a way for private annotation and annotations shared with a designated group. This group option is what I recommend for educational applications.

Hypothes.is is a free service supported by a wide variety of educational and news sources. It is an extension that can be added to most browsers, but I would suggest it is easiest to install as and use with Chrome.

I have been reading Mark Levin’s Unfreedom of the Press. If you have read this book or read the review I link here, you probably find my interest rather strange. Levin is at heart a talk show personality with a perspective that journalism is dominated by those with a progressive orientation. While my own political orientation could not be more different, what I find interesting about Levin’s book is his identification of reasons and data in support of his general argument. I grapple with understanding how Republicans in recent times can possibly take the positions that they take. The behavior and attitudes I see from my perspective lack any possible logic. At least with Levin, I have something to work with in terms of understanding.

This will not be a review of Levin’s book. This may come later. My post here deals mostly with the claim made in Levin’s first chapter. Levin begins by claiming the press is by nature progressive (Democratic) as most journalists have this orientation. This claim interested me because I have lately been considering the claim that this is also true of college professors with the related suggestion by some that hiring practices should take this into account and attempt to balance things out a bit. There is a similarity here in professional goals that occurs to me. Journalists could be seen as interested in a form of education. Why this imbalance exists is an interesting question and I will attempt to offer a perspective as a summary statement. If the commitment to education has something to do with progressive values, does it really make sense to seek out more individuals with a different orientation?

I started to wonder whether there was a correlation between occupation and political ideology and what this says about the perceived mission by those working in different occupations. I was able to find several sources (here is one from Business Insider). One of the more interesting presentations I found comes from Verdant Labs. This presentation includes some direct comparisons (e.g., Catholic Priests are far more likely Republican than Episcopalian Clergy). The visual comparisons also allow the exploration of subdivisions within occupational categories.

At some level, the data are unremarkable – e.g., business types are generally more Republican and those who provide services to people are more Democratic. The data are just interesting to consider.

These differences in political ideology can already be identified in college majors. I found these data difficult to find online which kind of surprises me as college students are kind of a captive audience for researchers. Among other things, this would point to the pool of talent available in different areas.

Here is what intrigues me about the claim that those in a profession should be different. There is nothing that prevents Republicans from becoming college professors or journalists and nothing that prevents Democrats from becoming actuaries or dentists. People gravitate toward occupations as a function of aptitude, interests, and values. Unless it can be demonstrated that there are biases in hiring practices is this a bad thing? I understand that a case can be made that educators and journalists are somehow different or have different obligations. What exactly would this case be? Let’s say that I resent what I believe is a greater financial orientation among dentists that I would like. I would guess this is the case, but I would also guess many might suggest that my call for dentists with different values would be considered ludicrous or at least impractical. Psychologists and social workers tend to be among the most democratically dominant professions. Would we really want this not to be the case? What about educators and journalists?

I found this article from Make Use Of to be helpful. It argues that the Spin and Accuracy of different news outlets to reflect different issues. In other words, the factual accuracy of claims made (facts) can be differentiated from the opinion/interpretation placed on these facts (spin). The article contains a useful chart if you would like to search for their take on your favorite sources.

I became interested in online influence as an adversarial tactic because much of my professional work made use of the Internet as an educational tool. It is impossible to promote this communication tool for influencing others without becoming aware of the negative possibilities to which influence can be applied. Becoming an educated information consumer offers one level of defense against damaging influence campaigns. I would not pretend that education will totally solve this problem and my interest has clearly moved beyond the issue of online information literacy. 

I have read several books related to foreign interference of different types involving the Internet and other digital tools. I admit that the election of 2016 and Russian interference in that election was intensified and broadened my interest. Without getting into whether or not there was collusion, the processes by which a foreign adversary can influence the attitudes and behavior of citizens of our country is an issue we all should find interesting. We are the targets.

You can probably locate my accounts of several books on related topics if you follow my blog posts. My most recent read is Shadow War by CNN reporter Jim Sciutto. If my suggestion alone is not sufficient to encourage you purchasing or borrowing this book, I would encourage you to listen to Sciutto’s hour-long Westminster lecture. The Westminster Townhall Forum originates from a Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis. I heard the Sciutto lecture on Minnesota Public Radio, but all of the lectures are available online.

Listen to a related presentation by Clint Watts

Zuckerberg’s logic on not fact checking political ads seems to be that Facebook will leave it to other parties to do so. This logic might seem to make some sense, but ignores the way Facebook actually works. Individuals end up biasing the inputs they receive from Facebook by choosing the individuals and services they follow. If most folks targeted with an ad tend to agree with the sentiment expressed, accurate or not, how would responses to such ads generate much in the way of pushback. If Facebook is not going to ban political ads or fact check political ads, perhaps it would make the most sense to not allow political ads to be targeted. If viewed by all, all would have the opportunity to respond.