Social Media and Terrorism and Ourselves:
The Post I Didn't Want to Write Tonight
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001143.html
I had not planned to post this item this evening. I actually started on
it earlier today, but put it aside for another time. It's Friday, I'm
tired, and the topic is just too depressing.
But when I flicked on the television a few minutes ago, I saw CNN
covering the live spectacle of a Muslim woman in a hijab, who stood
silently wearing a yellow star labeled Muslim, being evicted from a
Donald Trump rally by a boisterous crowd of Trump supporters who would
have fit right in during 1930s Germany.
And so I've pulled my depressing text back up in Google Docs, and I'll
finish it here and now.
How many billions of words have been written about terrorism since 9/11?
I wouldn't want to wager a guess, even while I'll admit that likely some
tens of thousands or more of them -- a drop in the proverbial bucket --
have been written by yours truly.
Over the years since there has been a marked change in the perceived
terrorist threats against Western countries -- a transition from mass,
directed attacks to "self-radicalized, lone-wolf" attacks, and an
alarming attempt to cast the Internet in general -- and social media in
particular -- as being especially complicit in the rise of the latter
terrorist type.
So Western governments (and other governments too, using the West's
reactions as an excuse for their own tyranny), have increasingly argued
that if somehow Internet social media could be "controlled" -- if there
were no way for the mentally ill, criminals, and the simply
disenfranchised members of society to not view radical videos, not see
radical websites, these problems could be massively lessened or even
perhaps eliminated.
Even ignoring for the moment that much radicalization takes place inside
prisons themselves, the view that choking off the more violent, angry,
or even more subtly propagandistic aspects of terrorist-related social
media would even make a dent in the rise of lone-wolf, self-radicalized
terrorist attacks is a horrifically and dangerously incorrect idea.
And that quiet Muslim woman with the yellow star, being thrown out of a
Trump rally this evening to the delight of Trump's screaming fans, is
all the proof we need.
For self-radicalization -- lone-wolf terrorism -- does not require
sophisticated technology. It does not require strong encryption systems
that governments around the world would subvert to the detriment of
their own law-abiding citizens.
The kind of terrorism on the lips of politicos and law enforcement these
days requires but two basic elements -- weapons, and not necessarily
elaborate ones at all -- trivially obtained in a country awash in gun
shops and hardware stores -- and the second element, simple anger of
sufficient intensity.
I believe I'd be accurate in asserting that the images and sounds
recorded of the eviction of that Muslim woman from Trump's fascist
lovefest this evening -- already winging their way around the world's
news media -- will provide more inspiration to more lone-wolf terrorists
than any 100 terrorist-produced videos or terrorist propaganda websites.
It's not just Trump, of course, though at the moment he is clearly the
leader of the fascist pack. It's the messages of hate that now pervade
conventional media -- including mainstream news organizations. FOX News
revels in it. CNN is only relatively better. And it's much the same on
other outlets both in the USA and around the world.
The message to marginalized persons is that we hate them. They don't
belong. They're inferior. They should carry special identification. They
should be rounded-up, evicted, blocked, spied upon, and spit on.
And ironically, these messages don't simply fire up radical Islamic
domestic terrorism, they energize the far more prevalent racist, white
supremacist, fascist domestic terrorists who view killing a Muslim with
the same joy they traditionally reserved for lynching blacks.
This is why attempts by our governments to lay false blame for
terrorists upon the Internet -- the government's all too obvious iron
fists only casually covered with velvet gloves -- alternately cajoling
and threatening the social media firms like Google, Facebook, Twitter,
and others -- are virtually all bogus accusations doomed to failure.
You could shut down every Internet social media site on the planet, and
terrorism would continue because hate and anger would continue -- in
fact, they would likely accelerate faster as a result.
Even in countries where the news media is tightly controlled -- like
China and Russia -- it's impossible to prevent the people from
ultimately learning what's actually going on.
And what's going on is mindless hatred, racism, bigotry, and fascism --
and so the resulting terrorism as well -- being energized by many of the
men and women who would have us anoint them as leaders of our nations.
It's worse than madness, it's suicidal. The problem isn't the Internet,
it's ourselves. We're all to blame, one way or another.
I feel ill.
Try to have a good weekend, fellow monsters.
Be seeing you.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
I have consulted to Google, but I am not currently
doing so -- my opinions expressed here are mine alone.
_______________________________________________
pfir mailing list
http://lists.pfir.org/mailman/listinfo/pfir
