User:Francg/expub/thesis/thesis-outline-draft-2-09.11.17

Thesis Outline

What?

We live in an era where information is quickly generated, changed, transformed, updated and shared all over the world almost instantaneously. Information technologies seem to have democratized the Internet, quickly worldwide-spreading facts, knowledge and individuals concerns. However, such democratic spaces can also be subjected to a State's legitimate use of power, turning them into weapons both of communication and control. Having such battle-field active, how is information being experienced?

This thesis will be contextualized surrounding the events occurred during the 1st of October in Catalonia, approaching the oppressive methods employed by the Spanish government to censor media before, during and after the referendum (declared illegal by the Constitutional Court of Spain), as well as the tools and actions taken by media activists supporting the cause. Simultaneously, while this sociopolitical conflict was taking place, a greater expansion and accumulation of data was being exposed, modified and quickly updated by news media, bipolarizing facts overwhelmingly. Although these changes might not be entirely visible for the user, it is nevertheless one of the aspects that results into mass miscommunication, as users get easily hooked into such intense data input. Another goal of this thesis will be to research methods and experiment with tools in order to make data transformation visible and accessible, providing documentation while manifesting this concern to the reader.

Why?

In order to create more insight into the nature of online information, it is important to understand which methods and tools were employed both to censor and free media during October 1st, what current examples of technology are used for centralization and control established into apparently democratic and ethical environments. Online journalism often use their website as text processors for writing their first drafts, which allows them to quickly publish a story in nearly real time. Thanks to RSS technology and programming tools, it is possible to bring evidence of the many versions of an article that we might have not read. It is also possible to cross news paywalls to access exclusive information, which can be useful to deepen into some key aspects of this issue, while ethically freeing knowledge.

Wikileaks creator Julian Assange says that "what is happening in Catalonia in the most significant Western conflict between people and state since the fall of the Berlin wall--but its methods are 2017, from VPNs, proxies, mirrors and encrypted chat to internet surveillance and censorship, bot propaganda and body armor." He also accuses Spain of conducting ‘world’s first internet war’ to shut down Catalan referendum: "The world's first internet war has begun, in Catalonia, as the people and government use it to organize an independence referendum on Sunday and Spanish intelligence attacks, freezing telecommunications links, occupying telecoms buildings, censors 100s of sites, protocols etc."

How?

RSS news feeds will be monitored in intervals of times by using diffengine, python and shell scripting tools. News changes will automatically be documented in html files, which will be strained through specific character or "string" recognition in the article's content, in order to ensure only topic-related material. This will be set up on Linux OS free software and installed on a Raspberry Pi. An additional screen display, keyboard and external hard drive will be integrated into this news station.

Information changes will be streamed and automatically classified on a database online, which will be accessible through onion browsers like Tor in order to preserve the user's anonymity and to help address ethical concerns when documenting particular sources. This data base will function as a democratic tool in defence of freedom of information, allowing users to access raw materials/content and additional collaboration features from guests (articles, essays, comments, interviews, etc.), and to become an eyewitness of the actual sociopolitical issue, drawing attention on how sometimes online media might look for quick information rather than verified one.

- - - Structure - - -

Pre-October 1st
- Media Censorship and Internet surveillance
- Google shuts down referendum's app
- Amazon blocks active domains
- Police authorities blocks all .cat domains
- Twitter removes account
- Banned Propaganda
- Raided newsprints stations
- Raided Telecommunication buldings

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100,000 active domain names to provide online space for Catalan language and culture were blocked without notification or court order. Moreover, on September 20, Spain’s Guardia Civil took down all .cat domains used for the referendum. Following a court ruling, Google blocked a Catalan government app that allowed users to check their polling stations. The following day police entered the headquarters of the Catalan government's Telecommunications and IT Center, known as CTTI. The official referendum website was just one of hundreds to be blocked: http://www.referendum.cat/

Peter Sunde on Twitter: "If you're running a Catalan site being shut down by Spanish authorities, contact me for anonymous hosting and domains. We've got you covered."

Furthermore, oppressive measures such as the raiding of printers and distributors in Barcelona, the confiscation of 1.3 million posters and leaflets, and the serving of an injunction against all pro-independence newspapers and web-based news offices to ban publication of any material related to the referendum.
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Some Internet activists and academics involved in the Catalan cause:
- Edward Snowden
- Noam Chomsky
- Julian Assange, Wikileaks creator
- Peter Sunde, Pirate Bay co-founder

October 1st
- Network Censorship and Internet Surveillance
- Cyber-attacks, Frozen Protocols
- Police forces take away bullet boxes, compromising vote's anonymity
- The hackers who made possible a universal electoral register for the Catalan referendum
- Tor, Signal, Linux, Bitcoin, Mobile Phones bought abroad, etc.
- VPNs, proxies, mirrors and encrypted chat
- Activists/hackers, Interview
- Twitter's political manifestations
- (e.g. Julian Assange:'The first Internet war has begun')
- (e.g. Edward Snowden: "One can be against Catalan independence and still in favor of human rights. But one cannot be in favor of Rajoy's crackdown and say the same")

Post-October 1st: Information junkies
- Mobile/Backpack journalism
- Anybody can be a reporter, instantaneously distributing news on their online communities
- Mass misinformation, inaccurate and unverified content.
- Clickbait: Users are hooked by a continuous data input.
- Information anxiety: How do big amounts of data affect users?
- How does this behavior pattern is reflected on the public opinion?
- Satiric news can be also spread as real news
- Satiric magazine "el Jueves" is taken to Justice, accused by Police authorities

Control and Centralization
- Article 155: as a process for juridic normalisation, until elections on December 21st.
- Media and Educational Institutions can be taken over by central government, aiming to inform and educate neutrally.
- From Twitter 1.0 to 2.0
- From RSS feeds to APIs (involving data exchange agreements)
- Why websites don't seem to use RSS feeds anymore? What is the benefit of using APIs if news update can't be followed?
- Will RSS technology be back even stronger than before?
- Before, the Internet could link to things without permission.

Ethical concerns
- Users personal data is traded and sold by social medias.
- Docnow: Community developed around supporting the ethical collection, use, and preservation of social media content.
- Docnow developed advanced programming tools for social research, such as diffengine and twarc, amongst others.
- #ArxivemelMoment (Organization of archivers for Catalonia): collects real facts from the 1st of October.
- #NoTincPor: Archiving for the terror attacks in Barcelona
- Human Rights Watch

What do I intend to do:

Use tools for decentralization
- Explain which tools I am experimenting with in my project and what can be achieved from it:
- Tools: RSS feed, diffengine, scrapy, beautifulsoup, ttrss, shell scripting, python, Linux OS, document classification systems, MongoDB, Tor, Raspberry Pi.
- What can be achieved: scraping specific info, crossing paywalls (newspaper with required subscription), stream information change from websites using RSS technology (or not), archiving, updating data, etc.
-Examine the relevance of cyber geography and how to get round its limitations
- Consider deep web media platforms and platform-specific tools

Expose this data using document classification systems
- Reserach Wikileaks structure?
- What is Eventregistry?
- Classify documents in a database, MongoDB
- Invite requests, guests collaborations, feedback, peaces of code, docs, etc.
- Hidden geolocation (anti online surveillance)
- Create a local web server in the Raspberry Pi
- Reinforce & support tools used by hackers during the 1st of October.

Possible Collaborations: Archivers, Activists, Programmers, other. (to determine)
- Contact Assange, Snowden, Chomsky, Sunde...?
- European Federation of Journalists
- #Arxivem el moment (Archivist of Catalonia)
- Mention: Docnow community (peace of code)?
- Ducan Barok (linking to his archive)?
- Marcel Mars (peace of code)?
- Femke Snelting (essay, comments)?
- Annet Decker?

Create an installation
- Raspberry Pi connected to a screen display
- Project live document-streaming
- Public can connect through mobile phones as well
- Print a manual ('how to feed your issue'): explain how this system has been developed, specs, tools, etc.
- Print a book/series of books: compilation of 'epic news changes' arranged by time.