Liberation Technology is a double-sided blade. We laud it for it’s ability to keep dissidents connected, to document and keep record of atrocities, but it can be turned against us so easily. Governments have the ability to use our reliance on ICTs for their own purposes. The same technology that frees us can be used to censor the Internet, create filters, track our Internet usages and criminalize us. Larry Diamond describes, “[l]iberation technology [as] any form of information and communication technology (ICT) that can expand political, social, and economic freedom” (70). Diamond focuses on the use of Liberation Technology in the “other-ed” part of the world, meaning the non-western world. His examples are rooted in the Middle East and Asia where, without a doubt, human right violations are far higher. But to imagine oppression and injustice as taking place only in places seen as “distant”, physically and politically, is damaging.

While we in the west have no issue imagining a Chinese dissident being hauled away to a detention center for posting an anti-authoritarian tweet, we are hard pressed to call up the image of our own government agencies serving subpoenas and summons to Twitter, “seeking records including the phone number, mailing addresses, and IP addresses associated” with dissident accounts (Wong). But why? We know the NSA keeps tabs on us. Every other week a new story breaks about the FBI demanding our social data. Most recently, the Department of Justice served DreamHost, a website-hosting company, with a search warrant, “for every piece of information it possessed that was related” to www.disruptj20.org, the website, “that was used to coordinate protests during Donald Trump’s inauguration” (Wong).

The J20 demonstrations are the perfect example of the duality of Liberation Technology within a Western Democratic country. J20 was the name given to the demonstration that took place to protest the inauguration of the 45^th president of the United States. Before the demonstration, people used Facebook pages to organize smaller groups to meet and protest together under common banners, used its messenger service to coordinate transportation to and room, and their own personal pages to post general protest safety guides. During, people used Twitter to provide live updates about what was happening on the ground in real time and alerted people to first aid stations. After, hundreds of videos are uploaded to YouTube, photos posted to Instagram, and blog articles spread across the Internet providing factual accounts of the rampant police brutality and the systematic suppression of the protestor’s rights to assemble. This is seen as the positive side of liberation technology, ICTs bringing people together to, “enable citizens to report news, expose wrongdoings, express opinions, mobilize protest, monitor elections, scrutinize government, deepen participation, and expand the horizons of freedom” (Diamond 70).

The more daunting side of Liberation Technology that gets overlooked are the instances when it is used against us. For example, the D.C. police subpoenaing Facebook for, “the social data of several protesters” who participated in the J20 demonstration (Daileda). Or facial recognition software scanning Instagram photos of the protest to track down those in attendance, and tweet’s being used as evidence in court to convict protestors of felony charges of ‘conspiracy’ (Higgins). Law enforcement is already infiltrating Twitter and Facebook creating fake profiles, setting up traps, and generally using social media to gather intelligence to use against groups it deems a ‘terror-threat’ all in the name of keeping America safe. Just as authoritarian dictators are able to use ICTs to track down dissidents in their countries, so does the government of the United States.

Diamond makes the statement, “[t]here is now a technological race underway between democrats seeking to circumvent Internet censorship and dictatorships that want to extend and refine it” (81). Which is immediately followed up by the contradictory statement that Iran has made “significant gains in repression” because western companies have happened because, “Western companies like Nokia-Siemens are willing to sell them advanced surveillance and filtering technologies” (81). Diamond even concludes his article with ways Western countries can support those citizens in Authoritarian countries. He even concludes his paper with a quote from then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supporting free access to the Internet.

The atrocities that occur in other parts of the world are horrific by comparison, but minimizing the violations perpetrated by our own government puts us all at risk for it’s continuation and escalation. We cannot continue to delude ourselves that our democracy is above surveillance. We cannot be so naïve to think these companies are only selling to “other-ed” countries, that they’re not using these technologies on their own citizens. Especially, because we do know that they are. We have proof that our civilized western democracy is spying on us, collecting data, and using our Internet use as a means to sustain their version of a civilized western democracy. We must remember, when she was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered for more intensive surveillance of American Citizens in the name of safety and freedom.

The good and bad side of Liberation Technology exists here in America and other Anglo countries and it must be recognized. Human right’s violations and oppression don’t happen solely “over-there” in those “uncivilized” and “un-democratic” regions of the world that most American’s can’t point out on the map. Turning injustice into a solely ‘other-worldly’ occurrence makes it easier to gloss over it when happens here, in our civilized western democracy.

 

Diamond, Larry. “Liberation Technology.” Journal of Democracy, vol. 21, no. 3, July 2010, pp. 69–83.

 

Levin, Sam. “FBI terrorism unit says ‘black identity extremists’ pose a violent threat.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 7 Oct. 2017, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/06/fbi-black-identity-extremists-racial-profiling.

 

Daileda, Colin. “D.C. police demand Facebook hand over data on Trump protesters.” Mashable, Mashable, 6 Feb. 2017, mashable.com/2017/02/06/dc-police-subpoena-facebook-inauguration-protests/#k_Vkiy6miaq1.

 

Wong, Julia Carrie. “US government demands details on all visitors to anti-Trump protest website.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 15 Aug. 2017, www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/14/donald-trump-inauguration-protest-website-search-warrant-dreamhost.

 

Higgins, Eoin. “Hundreds Face Conspiracy Charges For Actions Of A Few During Inauguration Day Protests.” The Intercept, 25 Oct. 2017, theintercept.com/2017/10/25/trump-inauguration-protest-j20-trial/. https://theintercept.com/2017/10/25/trump-inauguration-protest-j20-trial/

 

 

“We must have an endless commitment to finding, showing, and telling the truth”- Edward Tufte

 

Edward Tufte is a professor emeritus of political science, statistics, and computer science at Yale University. He is also the closest thing we’ve got to a household name in the field of information design, devoted equally to the data and its display, its function and its form. His beautiful, self-published books are loaded with rich visuals covering all sorts of graphs, charts, and maps, many historic and some new. He has worked as a consultant to NASA and The United States government, among many others. He is also an artist and has developed a sculpture park of 234 acres in Woodbury, Connecticut. He periodically gives a one-day seminar course on “Presenting Data and Information” which, though the title sounds impossibly dry, draws attendees from around the globe.

 

A ripple ran through the crowd as Edward Tufte, “The Leonardo da Vinci of data,” (Shapley, 1998) “The Galileo of Graphics,” (Aston, 2009) took the stage to introduce a music visualization as the opener to his seminar in Washington DC on November 6, 2017. The lights went out completely and I could no longer even see the note paper in front of me. Color bars pass on a screen, pulsing in coordination with the musical notes of a recording of Chopin, part of the Music Animation Machine by Stephen Malinowski.

 

But before we even got to the beautiful music, we had quiet reading time. Edward Tufte begins all of his presentations with “Study Hall” where he provides a devoted segment of silent time to read a written document, of 3-4 narrative pages, that describes the concepts and information of the materials that are about to be presented. He is known for his disdain of typical Powerpoint presentations and describes the study hall segment as the first step in a successful presentation by placing control (physically) in the hands of the audience. He is devoted to the user as the priority when setting out to provide education, evidence, and information. His position is that the viewer has the best capabilities to scan the materials for what interests them, skip what they don’t want, and have the option of holding onto the hard copy for future reference. In this way the presentation may be customized and personalized by the viewer and not just the presenter. The meeting begins by empowering the ones who are there to learn and makes them active participants right from the start, rather than passive observers. This “silent start” study hall strategy is also used by Jeff Bezos at Amazon for all company meetings as an efficiency measure that his team swears by. (Bariso, 2017) Attendees have time first to learn and time to think, and then to be more engaged in the meeting.

Tufte describes the Powerpoint presentation as “stacked in time.” The concepts and data are dribbled out over time and there is no way for the audience to gather the whole in a cohesive context. It may be the easiest to create and show, but it is not the best way to clearly and accurately inform the viewer. When a presenter subjects his/her viewers to the passive experience of sitting through the traditional Powerpoint slide deck, they are entirely at the mercy of the presenter’s pace and choices. “For all of the disruption we have seen from the tech industry, there is a complete lack of creativity.” (Tufekci, 2017) Powerpoint has enjoyed the default presentation position for years. Tufte compares it to voicemail menus where a listener must wait through a list of options to find out what to press–another interface that is stacked in time and inconvenient for the audience. A “focus on the person… a shift towards a ‘person-centred’ approach, rather than a ‘system-centred’ approach. This has been accompanied by a switch from quantitative methods to qualitative methods.” (Wilson, 2000) Tufte very decisively advocates for a human- and user-centered process, that addresses quantitative and qualitative measures, when sharing data and presenting information.

 

Besides the study hall beginning, Tufte describes the optimal way for users to consume information as “adjacent in space.” Using methods that allow the integration of different types of data–numbers, words, pictures, etc. in the same space creates context for a richer, comprehensive understanding. He shared Charles Joseph Minard’s data map tracking the French invasion of Russia in 1812. The visual creates a rich story by including numbers of troops lost, over time, as it relates to deployments, the terrain, and the weather. It provides lots of context to explain the devastating loss of life due to multiple factors. “Taking context seriously means finding oneself in the thick of the complexities of particular situations at particular times with particular individuals.” (Nardi, 1996, p35)

Tufte had plenty of jabs for 3-D pie charts, drop shadows, bright colors, and “datajunk.” His directive is to first consider the data that you must convey, leave as much information intact as possible, and present it in as clear and uncluttered a format as possible. Visual clutter is the signature of the designer, the coder, the editor, and will only impede the learning process for the viewer. Just as Lessig describes his concept of Open Evolution as it relates to coding: “Build a platform, or set of protocols, so that it can evolve in any number of ways; don’t play god; don’t hardwire any single path of development; don’t build into it a middle that can meddle with its use” (Lessig, 1999, p110), Tufte is a strong proponent of keeping as much of the data itself available for the audience to interpret for themselves. There is no such thing as information overload, only bad design.

 

“Evidence is evidence, whether words, numbers, images, diagrams, still or moving. It is all information after all. For readers and viewers, the intellectual task remains constant regardless of the particular mode of evidence: to understand and to reason about the materials at hand, and to appraise their quality, relevance, and integrity.” (Tufte, 2006, p83)

 

The more data that is there, the more accurate and believable it will be. He raises significant concern around integrity in data analysis. Specifically, in the process of selecting data, he recognizes the broad practice of “cherry picking and lemon dropping” data to suit one’s biases. Akin to James Moor’s Invisibility Factor in computer calculations: “Answers chosen will build certain values into the program…This becomes a significant ethical issue as the consequences grow in importance.” (Moor, 1985, p274) Gathering data appropriately and then showing it accurately takes skill and mindful discipline. Many data visualizations can skew the viewer’s understanding simply by using larger font sizes for some bullet points–and the more important the data, the higher the stakes. Tufte shared a presentation from his evaluation of the Space Shuttle Columbia flight that imparted information in a way that led to dangerous decisions and ultimately may have contributed to the loss of life for 7 crew members. The Powerpoint format was too simple, inappropriately edited, and did not show the important, complex data that needed to be considered. He argues the world is complex and multi-variate and we must display the data to encompass this. Don’t dumb it down–have faith in the viewer.

 

Tufte warns us all, as creators and as users, to question the data we see and to think carefully about the relationship between the evidence and the conclusion. Start with an open question and do the research. Taking data from one project and appropriating it to something else will often lead to inaccuracy. Every step, from how the data is collected (is the scientist paddling over to a cleaner area of the lake to gather his sample for water pollutants?) to how the designer lays it out (are they removing some data to make it fit nicely in their grid?) is suspect. “In the political and philosophical sense in which I use the term here, neutrality is impossible. In any situation, there exists a distribution of power.” (Jensen, 2006, p91) He also urges us to question our own biases and to cultivate self-awareness about what we see.

 

Tufte urges us to always assume equality across a room. Give every idea a chance. Meet the challenge to see things in a neutral way rather than through the lens of our own bias. Always source alternative and divergent views. Create the environment for truth to be sought and revealed.

 

The last visual of Tufte’s talk asked:

 

How do they know that?

How do you know that?

How do I know that?

 

“When we turn over the provision of knowledge to others, we are left vulnerable to their choices, methods, and subjectivities. Sometimes this is a positive, providing expertise, editorial acumen, refined taste. But we are also wary of the intervention, of human failings and vested interests, and find ourselves with only secondary mechanisms of social trust by which to vouch for what is true and relevant.” (Gillespie, 2014, p187)

 

In the field of data analysis and visualization we must be accurate with sources, provide more than less information, and show it in the most logical and digestible way to our viewers. Ultimately we are seeking the truth, which Edward Tufte proselytizes can be found through evidence. If the evidence is shown properly, the right conclusion will be found.

 

Sources:

Aston, Adam (June 10, 2009) “Tufte’s Invisible Yet Ubiquitous Influence” Bloomberg.com https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2009-06-10/tuftes-invisible-yet-ubiquitous-influencebusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice (retrieved on November 9, 2017)

Bariso, Justin (2017) “Silent Start: The Brilliant and Surprising Meeting Method I learned from Jeff Bezos,”  Inc.com.  https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/amazons-jeff-bezos-uses-a-brilliant-and-surprising.html  (retrieved on November 9, 2017)

Gillespie T. (2014), “The relevance of algorithms” in Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society, eds. T. Gillespie, P. Boczkowski, and K. Foot. Cambridge: MIT Press, 167–194. http://www.tarletongillespie.org/essays/ Gillespie%20-%20The%20Relevance%20of%20Algorithms.pdf with Shapin, Steven. 1995. “Trust, honesty, and the authority of science.” In Society’s Choices: Social and Ethical Decision Making in Biomedicine.

Jensen, R. (2006). “The myth of the neutral professional” in Questioning Library Neutrality, ed. A. Lewis. Library Juice, 89–96.

Lessig, L. (1999). “Open code and open societies: values of internet governance,” Chicago-Kent Law Review 74, 101–116. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/works/lessig/ final.PDF.

Moor, J. H. (1985). “What is computer ethics?” Metaphilosophy 16(4): 266–275.

Nardi, B.A. (1996). “Studying context: a comparison of activity theory, situated action models and distributed cognition” in Nardi, B. (ed.) Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human-Computer Interaction. MIT Press.

Shapley, Deborah (March 30, 1998) “The da Vinci of Data” The New York Times. (retrieved on November 11, 2017)

Tufekci, Zeynep (Nov 2, 2017) Confronting Surveillance Capitalism with Zeynep Tufekci, Civic Hall, New York City event.

Tufte, Edward (2006). Beautiful Evidence: 83-127.

Wilson, T. D. (2000). “Human information behavior.” Informing Science 3(2): 35.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The future of storytelling (FoST) festival is an immersive storytelling event covers exhibits, panels conversations, lectures from thinkers and practitioners from diverse fields, interactive performance about how to use the cutting-edge technologies, media and communication ways to telling stories in the future. [FoST] On October 6^th, I went to Staten Island for experience interesting people’s projects and explorations of storytelling.

The consequence beyond my thought, I was excepted to just see some VR or AR shows and immerse in a thrill of the chase. It was thrilling and also meaningful when I finish the lecture about “Refining Identity through the lens of the media”.

The talker contains Wendy Calhoun, a writer, and producer of TV-serous; Joe Lewis, head of comedy, drama & VR Amazon studios and Jose Antonio Vargas, Kay Wilson Stallings. Wendy said she refuses to tell “color-blind” [2008] stories, for colorblind stories encourages the writers to be generic in their choice. In fact, the choice of giving a person or actor a cultural specificity could bring the character to life in a much more authentic way. [FoST] The reason why we avoid to express our true thought is that we could not be accepting the situation or the status quo of bias, prejudice and people’s thoughts based on their culture, community, and faith. [2004] She then pointed out that diversity is so much more than race and gender “When we talk about diversity, we say the female, people with color…Diversity is also height, weight…So many different things in the world.” That reminds me to think of Vinopal’s article [2006] about workforce diversity, the homogenization of gender, color and social category, generation, diversity covers so board range of society. We may see the importance of co-operating, for the enterprise culture, better serve the diverse community. but the reason why we still could not see the diversification may not only for the pipeline issues but the dishonesty. The dishonesty causes the ignorance of bias, that could not be measured by any questionnaire or interview. When information professional arranges the records, empathy matters, know the story and emotion of others and really put ourselves in their shoes. What I agree with is the importance of take action, no matter in gender realm or others, like Wajcman’s article let more female get into science, not only talk about what we should deserve and do nothing, only if the situation been changed, fewer judgement about what kind of job should what kind of people do. [2010] Annevar Bush’s As We May Think said scientific reasoning should not only limit to logical processes, that could impede our way for understanding the world. [1945] If we see technology as physical devices, it’s hard to create substantial technology progress. Yochai Benkler [2006] mentions social production in his book. If discards the threaten of intellectual property, people transact knowledge by lower cost, highly effective and board way. We are already breaking through the wall of disciplines, more identity conscious needs breakthrough.

The information heritage needs authentic, research and scrutiny, by achieves, librarians, writers…, Wendy Calhoun than describes her experience of research, once she needs to write a chapter about Kentucky, and she never been there before, so she went there and talked with Kentucky’s police officer, asked them questions. One officer named Walt told her she’s real-life bullet. She said, “Compare actually see where she lived, actually heard what she did, plus, the little more stories as we walk into the room and pitch it.”[FoST], that could be the real passion of doing the job. People were doing that have the extraordinary responsibility to make sure that all stories authentic as possible. You have to do the research. Do it right, not to not do it.

 

 

Work Citing

“FoST FESTIVAL.” Future of StoryTelling | Reinventing the Way Stories Are Told, futureofstorytelling.org/fest.

Burdman, Pamela (2008). “Exposing the truth and fiction of racial data” (PDF). California Magazine. Cal Alumni Association: 40–46. Retrieved 18 January 2008.

Jennifer Vinopal(2006). “The Quest for Diversity in Library Staffing: From Awareness to Action” In the Library with the Lead Pipe, www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org quest-for-diversity, 2006.

Robert Jensen(), “The Myth of the Neutral Professional” Progressive Librarian No. 24, 2004.

Judy Wajcman (2010). “Feminist theories of technology” Cambridge Journal of Economics, Volume 34, Issue 1, Pages 143–152, 1 January 2010.

Bush, Vannevar (1945). “As We May Think” Atlantic Monthly 176, pp. 101-108, July 1945.

Pawley, C. (2003). “INFORMATION LITERACY: A CONTRADICTORY COUPLING” Library Quarterly, 73(4), 422-452.

Benkler, Y. (2006). “Introduction: a moment of opportunity and challenge” in The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. Yale University Press, 1–18.

After reading Jennifer Vinopal’s article, “The Quest for Diversity in Library Staffing: From Awareness to Action” (2016), I have to admit I wasn’t surprised at the lack of diversity in the American Library system, but I did feel nonetheless a deep sense of disappointment. After reviewing the latest numbers published by the American Library Association (2009-2010), 88% of the credentialed librarians in this country are white. Of the 22% in our field that represent African Americans, Asian and Pacific Islanders (API), Native Americans, including Alaskan, Two or more races, and Latinos, there are only 138 active African American library directors in the US, according to Michael Kelley in “Diversity Never Happens: The Story of Minority Hiring Doesn’t Seem To Change Much.” He also notes that “African Americans and Hispanics are some of the strongest supporters of libraries, and yet they continue to be thinly represented among the ranks of librarians.” All of these figures are very disturbing, to say the least, and left me asking myself the same question, what can we do to effectively challenge the current racial and power structures that exist in our profession? (Hudson, 2017) I don’t believe that I have an answer, not just yet, but I want to be part of the conversation and take a stand.

In “The myth of the neutral professional” (2006), Jensen challenges us to stand up and take a side because “neutrality is impossible.” He continues, “[i]n any situation, there exists a distribution of power…To take no explicit position by claiming to be neutral is also a political choice, particularly when one is given the resources that make it easy to evaluate the consequences of that distribution of power and, at least potentially, affect its distribution.” We as LIS students have the resources. So now it is time for us to choose a side. Are we to stand by and idly watch as this lack of diversity continues to repeat itself, or do we choose to use our privilege and resources to affect change? We need to look at the failures of past diversity programs and not allow ourselves to repeat those failures by “diversifying without dismantling power differentials” (Vinopal, 2016) that currently exist.

These racial and power structures are not limited to the LIS profession, they are deeply entrenched in every area of our society today. But who will we be tomorrow? In “Why Diversity Matters: A Roundtable Discussion on Racial And Ethnic Diversity in Librarianship,” Juleah Swanson, Head of Acquisition Services at the University of Colorado Boulder, gives us a great place to start by asking ourselves, “What innovative ways can we educate and teach colleagues and students about complex issues like microaggressions, institutional racism, and privilege, reflecting both traditional means of teaching such as lectures and readings, and through learned experiences?” It is our responsibility as LIS students to continue to research and try to understand why these racial and power systems exist and lead the change that will diversify and better our profession.

“ ‘Diversity’ is named and defined in places of great power.” – Sandra Ríos Balderrama

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References

Balderrama, S. (2000). This Trend Called Diversity. Library Trends: Ethnic Diversity in Library and Information Science 49 (1): 194-214.

http://www.ala.org/aboutala/sites/ala.org.aboutala/files/content/diversity/diversitycounts/diversitycountstables2012.pdf

Hudson, D. J. (2017). On “Diversity” as Anti-Racism in Library and Information Studies: A Critique. Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 1(1). DOI: 10.24242/jclis.v1i1.6

Jensen, R. (2006). The myth of the neutral professional. Questioning Library Neutrality, ed. A. Lewis. Library Juice, 89–96. http://jonah.eastern.edu/emme/2006fall/jensen.pdf

Kelley, M. (2013). Diversity Never Happens: The Story of Minority Hiring Doesn’t Seem To Change Much | Editorial. http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/02/opinion/editorial/diversity-never-happens-the-story-of-minority-hiring-doesnt-seem-to-change-much/#_ .

Swanson, J., Damasco, I., Gonzalez-Smith, I., Hodges, D., Honma, T., and Tanaka, A. (2015) Why Diversity Matters: A Roundtable Discussion on Racial And Ethnic Diversity in Librarianship. http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2015/why-diversity-matters-a-roundtable-discussion-on-racial-and-ethnic-diversity-in-librarianship/ .

Vinopal, J. (2016). The Quest for Diversity in Library Staffing: From Awareness to Action. Lead Pipe.  http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2016/quest-for-diversity