the new media and its impact on politics

1. PS 475, 2015

2.  Black Lives Matter Movement, BlackTwitter
 Arab Spring uprisings in 2011 in many Middle Eastern and
North African countries

3. Republican frontrunner says as leader he would send any refugees back, in
contrast to rival Jeb Bush’s comment that the US is ‘duty bound’ to help
Republican presidential candidate DonaldTrump speaks during a
campaign stop in Keen onWednesday. Photograph: Steven Senne/AP

4.  Tamir Rice: police release video of 12-year-old's fatal shooting
– video, Nov. 2014
 I can't breathe': Eric Garner put in chokehold by NYPD officer
– video
 Walter Scott shooting: police dashcam video shows him
running from car
 OhioWalmart CCTV captures John Crawford shooting - video

6.  Sparked protest, Black Lives Matter
movement
 U.S. Justice Department investigation
of Ferguson police
 Increased scrutiny of police shootings
of unarmed blacks

12.  Several police and court employees expressed racist views in emails and
interviews. Messages between Ferguson officials compared African-Americans
to chimpanzees and characterized a black woman’s abortion as an effective
crime-stopping tool. VIEW IN REPORT »
 Routine interactions between officers and black residents quickly escalated.
In 2012, for example, an officer patted down a black man whose car appeared to
violate a city code on window tinting.The man was ultimately arrested on eight
offenses, including “making a false declaration” by giving his nickname instead of
the name on his license.Over the course of the arrest, the officer accused him of
being a pedophile, asked to search his car without cause and reportedly held a
gun to his head. VIEW IN REPORT »
 The Ferguson Police Department used tasers and dogs in excess on black
suspects. In 2013, one man was chased down and bitten by an officer’s dog even
though the officer had frisked him and knew the man was unarmed.The officer’s
supervisor later justified the use of force with a patently untrue statement,
suggesting that the officer feared “that the subject was armed.” VIEW IN
REPORT »

14.  Ferguson police and court officials were focused on generating revenue from municipal
fines.The municipal court routinely considered more than 1,000 offenses in a single
session. In 2011, the police chief reported that fines in the last month “beat our next
biggest month in the last four years by over $17,000.”The city manager responded:
“Wonderful!” VIEW IN REPORT »
 One black woman was arrested twice, spent six days in jail and paid $550 to a city court, all
because she parked her car illegally once in 2007 and was punished for failing to appear in
court and missing payments. By 2014, she still owed the court $541 for fines stemming
from the 2007 incident. VIEW IN REPORT »
 Ferguson issued expensive fines for minor offenses: for example, $531 for high grass and
weeds in a yard, $777 for resisting arrest and $792 for failure to comply with a police officer.
The fine amounts were above regional averages for many offenses, the report said. Failing
to provide proof of insurance cost $375 in Ferguson, more than double the median in other
municipal courts in the region. VIEW IN REPORT »

15.  To determine whether cops are racist, Jordan Klepper and Roy
Wood Jr. investigate a police bias training program. (10:00)
Hat tip to Matt Giattino

17.  Repression makes it harder for opposition activists to mobilize
around a cause because without free expression and
association it is very difficult to:
 Gauge whether grievances are shared by other people and to
persuade other people that they should hold the same grievance.
 The government will use national symbols and national institutions
to de-legitimize protest groups as being disloyal to the nation.
 A repressive, authoritarian regime will arrest and repress protestors
if they don’t have some anonymity for their communications.

18. Tweets in Arab in Egypt grew and remained high
during the uprising, whereas outsider tweets in
non-Arabic language fell during the uprising

19.  Less censored mobile phone use was consistently a key ingredient
for predicting successful protests in Arab Spring in countries where
an authoritarian regime was vulnerable to protest, where its
vulnerability was predicted by the usual causes of revolutions—i.e.,
press freedom, corruption, income, the youth bulge and years of
authoritarian rule.
 Success (at least initially): the two Arab Spring countries in which
dictators were deposed relatively quickly, Tunisia and Egypt, had the
most tech-savvy civil society and large Internet-using populations in the
region
 Much less success: the two Arab spring countries in which dictators were
deposed only after months of protracted civil war, Libya andYemen, had
much smaller Internet-using populations.
 No success: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had a well-
financed strategy of monitoring and punishing online acts of political
engagement.
Hussain, Muzammil
M., and Philip N.
Howard. "What best
explains successful
protest cascades?
ICTs and the fuzzy
causes of the Arab
Spring." International
Studies Review 15, no.
1 (2013): 48-66.

20.  It is true that Facebook andTwitter did not cause
revolutions, in the sense that people used them to
organize protests.
 But with digital media, protests occurred faster
and were sometimes more successful than before
because:
 Mobile phones were key to bridging communication
gaps in authoritarian regimes.
 They could be easily carried and concealed, could
often be used to shoot and upload photos and
videos, and could be recharged in the street.
 Lessons Learned:After the Arab Spring,
authoritarian regimes have followed the lessons of
Saudi Arabia and UAE by investing millions to
censor and manage digital media more
effectively.

22.  First study: Method: “Scrape”
the Internet in China on a regular
basis to see which of the millions
of social media posts are
censored (removed and thus
disappear by the next scraping)
by the Chinese government.
 Contrary to previous
understandings, posts with
negative, even vitriolic, criticism
of the state, its leaders, and its
policies are not more likely to be
censored. Instead, the
censorship program is aimed at
curtailing collective action by
silencing comments that
represent, reinforce, or spur
social mobilization, regardless of
content.

23. The results are unambiguous: posts are censored if they are in a topic area with
collective action potential and not otherwise.Whether or not the posts are in favor of
the government, its leaders, and its policies has no measurable effect on the
probability of censorship

24.  Second Study: Submit fake blog posts to
different Chinese blogs and see which ones are
censored.
 Create two accounts at each of 100 social media
sites that represent 87% of blog posts, the top 2
of which have more than 50 to 100 million daily
active users
 4Types of Fake Blog Posts were submitted to see
what types of posts were removed by automated
review by censors. For each post submitted in
China, a group of native Chinese speakers write
one of 4 posts –either supportive or critical of the
government that either emphasized collective
action potential or not.The 4 different types of
posts were randomly submitted to the 100 sites.

26.  66 of 100 sites review at least
some of the posts
 40% of all posts were put into
review
 Which posts were censored
by automated review?
 Those suggesting some
collective action potential