User:Francg/expub/project-proposal-presentation

Project Proposal's Presentation - Assessment 5-12-17

intro

Internet censorship is prohibited to governments by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, both of which guarantee everyone's right of freedom of online speech.

However, data is increasingly becoming more vulnerable to state authorities, centralized platforms or institutionalized environments, which was clearly demonstrated during the referendum period in Catalonia.

Even though this conflict remains quite unclear, I felt it was necessary to increase transparency of information controls, even in “Western democracies”, and provide EVIDENCE for informed public debate. Just as other archives preserve an ethical collection of specific material.

Moreover, preserving data can anticipate any possible potential threads for censoring it. Specially nowadays that the Catalan media is under strict observation by the Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, ahead of the new elections on the 21D.

In this sense, information is not free and open, most importantly, it is censored, manipulated and revised, yet this is invisible often.

censorship

For instance, this is how the website created by the Catalan government to inform about the referendum looks like. (image)

And this is how it looked after. (image)

This how another website created for the same goal looked like. (image)

And this is how it looked after. (image)

And it happens the same on all other 'mirrors'. (image)

The .cat Foundation was forced to block websites with information about the referendum in accordance to a court warrant. In total, around 140 active domains were taken down.

Even the voting software (informative app) 'On votar 1-Oc', that could be downloaded from google play for free, was blocked by Google following Spanish court ruling. Google was also ordered to block or eliminate any future apps submitted by the user with the email behind it. (image)

reactions

Users react in social networks. (images tweets)

But also news media and organizations rises their concerns on this issue, regarding freedom of information, and people's rights. (images)

The problem is when news media contribute to create confusion, considering that information can intentionally be faked, which intoxicates the debate even more, as they go viral, causing misinformation, uncertainty and conflict between users.

revisions

So in between this scramble, we have to include that news are constantly rewritten and revised. Sometimes it is done 1, 2 or 3 times, but it can also have plenty more of freely flowing versions as well. This means that news media changes and updates information almost on the fly, sometimes quicker rather than accurately in order to reach a bigger audience faster. (image)

process

So, this whole scenario of censored websites, quickly changing data, inaccurate and polarized information... where does it leads to? In order to understand this better, I've been experimenting with software, concretely with diffengine, tracking RSS news feeds in time intervals, collecting news articles, automating character recognition for article selection. I have also observed that each article contains a substantial structure. not only because of the directly visible written changes, but because of the code that lies behind it. (images)

interface

How could all this little prototypes integrate into a concrete and substantial system, where users could take profit from, where information is more visible and accessible without restrictions, where users could compare sources or analyze demographic groups, allowing the monitoring of happening facts, to strengthen research and of course, empower the user to become aware of the nature of online information: (sketch)

However, as I am experimenting with it, it is important to narrow things down and focus on what can be useful for the user, avoiding to build a big chunk of software.

current similar projects

• Newsdiffs tracks changes, compares sources.
• GuradianDiff streams changes and makes them visible online.
• Stream changes between original URL's article and new coming revisions. This can be lead through headlines.

goals

• embrace more democratic results
• reinforce the importance of accurate information
• combat misinformation
• draw attention to both the audience watching news media, and news media changing information on the fly