User:Tash/grad testplay

Test Play 1: March 2019

Introduction

Reading: on current censorship trends online

• Delbert, R. (2008) Black Code Redux: Censorship, Surveillance, and the Militarization of Cyberspace. In: Boler, M. (ed.) Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Scott, M. (2018) ‘Welcome to new era of global digital censorship’. [online] Politico. Available at: https://www.politico.eu/article/google-facebook-twitter-censorship-europe-commission-hate-speech-propaganda-terrorist/ [Accessed: 02 Feb. 2019]
• Siddharta, A. (2017) ‘Indonesian TV censorship: cartoons cut, athletes blurred as conservative Islam asserts itself and broadcasters fear sanctions’ [online] South China Morning Post. Available at: https://www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/article/2126007/indonesian-tv-censorship-cartoons-cut-athletes-blurred-conservative [Accessed: 20 Jan. 2019]

Reading: on the impact of trolls & paid propaganda on social media

• Lim, M. (2017) ‘Freedom to hate: social media, algorithmic enclaves, and the rise of tribal nationalism in Indonesia.’ Critical Asian Studies, 49(3): 411-427.
• https://decoders.amnesty.org/projects/troll-patrol/findings
• Juniarto, D. (2018) ’The Muslim Cyber Army: what is it and what does it want?’ [online] University of Melbourne. Available at: http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/the-muslim-cyber-army-what-is-it-and-what-does-it-want/ [Accessed: 02 Feb. 2019]
• Sanfilippo, M. & Fichman, P. (2015) The Bad Boys and Girls of Cyberspace: How Gender and Context Impact Perception of and Reaction to Trolling. Social Science Computer Review 2015, Vol. 33(2) 163-180.

Examples of hostile social media spaces

• walk through some examples of hostile social media accounts and hashtags
• read https://pad.xpub.nl/p/deletecomment

Terms & definitions

• Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants. This practice is about producing 'fake' or 'artificial' support.

• Trolling is a mischievous / deviant activity which involves starting quarrels or upsetting people on the Internet to distract and sow discord by posting inflammatory and digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community.

• Doxing (from dox, abbreviation of documents) or doxxing, is the Internet-based practice of researching and broadcasting private or identifiable information (especially personally identifiable information) about an individual or organization.

• Raids (gaming): Often used with mmorpgs. It involves players banding together to succeed at a common goal- such as taking over territory, killing an opposing faction, or most commonly killing big scary internet monsters that drop coveted items.

• Raids (4chan): A collaborative effort of 4Chan users to disrupt the community that surrounds a certain hashtag. Can include illegal actions like DDoS attacks.

• Flame bait is a message posted to a public Internet discussion group, such as a forum, newsgroup or mailing list, with the intent of provoking an angry response (a "flame") or argument over a topic the "troll" (original poster provoking angry response) often has no real interest in, and finds humour, or entertainment in reactions.

• Spamming is the use of messaging systems to send an unsolicited message (spam), especially advertising, as well as sending messages repeatedly on the same site.

• Swatting is the harassment tactic of deceiving an emergency service (via such means as hoaxing an emergency services dispatcher) into sending a police and emergency service response team to another person's address.

• Scambaiting is a form of Internet vigilantism, where the vigilante poses as a potential victim to the scammer in order to waste their time and resources, gather information that will be of use to authorities, and publicly expose the scammer.

The Game

Live Action Instagram RPG

Knowing that social media functions by amplifying some voices while suppressing others, this interactive game will ask you to rethink your own relation to the medium. Like the practices of 'counterspeech' or 'contra-internet', it suggests new ways to talk back to social media spaces which have become especially hostile towards women. Through the performance and labour of roleplay, you are invited to critically explore this setting, and vicariously engage with its mechanisms and 'players'.

Unlike Gamification, which is the application of game-design elements to non-game contexts, this project relies on the already-existing gaming mechanisms in social media culture. As such, it is not the creation of a new game – but simply an invitation to play differently.

What you need

• Laptop & smartphone
• Internet connection
• Gameplay cards

Rules

• Always begin & end the game together
• Always play in teams of 2 or more
• Stay in character until further instruction
• Always follow back users who follow you
• Always screenshot your engagements in order of play
• Always tag / mention the game's main profile in your posts & comments, this way we can document your actions @raksasi1
• After the game, decide together whether to kill / donate the profile

How to play
In groups of two or more, create fake identities and profiles on Instagram. Picking up cards from a deck, perform the actions on the card. Document the engagement you receive. More attention = more points. The team with the most points after 10 rounds, wins.

Steps

1. Collectively decide on a mission or a target.
2. Divide into teams of 2.
3. Create Protonmail accounts, and then Instagram profiles.
4. Set up your character (who do you follow? what is in your bio? whose voice are you representing?).
5. Once everyone is ready, we exchange handles, and follow each other.
6. Before we play the first round, each team is given a set of 3 "Gardening cards". These may be employed only once, and in place of picking up an action card.
   – Gardening card 1: Call allies to a conversation
   – Gardening card 2: Maintain a conversation
   – Gardening card 3: Skip (this one can be employed after picking up an action card)
   
7. Picking up cards from two decks, each team then completes 5 actions:
   – Pick up action card + channel card
   – Perform the chosen action on the chosen channel
   – Make screenshot
   – Save post to archive
   
8. At the end of 5 rounds, do one round of evaluation and discussion. Document engagement.
9. Picking up cards, each team then completes another 5 actions
10. Final round of evaluation, count points and decide on fate of accounts

Point System

• For every follower at end of game: 1 point
• For every like on comments or posts: 2 points
• For every flagged comment or post: 4 points
• For every DM received: 3 points
• For every reply to a comment or post: 2 points