Cutting the Social Media Cord

Most people I know have a conflicted relationship with their social media. Most might be too far, but the public has reason to be concerned. This post will likely be more personal than analytical, so you'll have to forgive me.

For a couple of years I've been worried about the privacy and frankly the morality of the massive companies that dominate our social exchanges to such a degree. Companies like Facebook and Twitter are not neutral. Imagine if the postal workers read all of your mail and kept careful records or who you write and interacted with. It's against the law for people to interfere with your mail. Social media provide private platforms, which means what we produce there does not belong to us. We have no protections.

If you are receiving a product for free, then you're the product. Facebook is selling us. They sell our attention, our web pages, etc. to advertisers. Ads tailored to us flood our feeds and bombard each day. If you never tried, look at someone else's account. See how different their experience is from yours. Obviously a major concern has been Facebook selling or exposing our data for manipulation and profits. 

Facebook especially, but other social media as well, seems highly suited to indulge in the worst of our natures: accepting those that support our biases, and rejecting those we disagree with and challenge us. This is epitomized by the fake news phenomenon. People widely shared and were influenced by for-profit propaganda. Do not simply dismiss this as a 2016 problem. It continues to exist and grow like a cancer. The most successful coarsen and erode our public discourse.

The toxicity of social media feeds into our body politic. I've heard numerous examples of people taking breaks from social media. I presume they don't quit because of the utility of the service and how difficult it is to just sever it. Seeing how awful the internet can be on a regular basis cannot be good for us, nor encouraging us to spew bile and invective at each other.

I am strongly considering deleting at least my Facebook. I don't trust that company. It may have utility, but so do other things that ultimately in the net hurt you. I would encourage other readers to consider the same. It may be time to end this experiment once and for all.  

The Nerd Economy Bubble

This blog post is going to be a bit strange. It had its origins as a response to a response to a I asked question, but then I thought it started getting long and convoluted so instead I decided to try something a little longer format.

I am a patron of a new podcast called The Mixed Six. The premise is really straightforward, two friends (and their producer) sit down to have a conversation on six different topics with six beers. What makes it special is that the hosts, in my opinion, are a wonderfully intelligent, sharp, funny, critical, and nerdy. I believe in one episode they switched from discussing comic book properties to a Marxist critique of gift cards. As a patron I can submit questions so I asked them if they thought the nerd economy was a bubble. I will do my best to summarize my question and their answers, but you can feel free to listen yourself at 52:15. If you choose to listen you can skip the next four paragraphs.

My question I posed was this (roughly), are we in the midst of a nerd economy bubble? All over the internet there are people trying to make money on YouTube, Twitch, Kickstarter, Patreon, etc. and I question the ability of the market to sustain them. There is also the aspect that young naive creators rush headlong into an industry that ruthlessly exploits them for little in return.  

Caleb Stokes admitted that he has feared there is a bubble. Producer Ross Payton made the point that this not a nerd specific phenomenon, ex. make-up tutorials and compared it to the shift from radio to TV, or sheet music to radio. How we consume media. He admitted that there is a lot of exploitation. However, he didn't believe it was a bubble, but a seismic shift. Patreon is a tool that empowers the creators (somewhat).

Caleb argued that if there was a bubble that popped it would be on the supply side. Most people who do these projects do them as a side project. A crash would hurt the platforms. While there are huge earners most people are scrapping by for a little extra money. If it goes away it will be because of how platforms treat their users/creators. Quality control is an issue.

Spencer added it does feel like a bubble because there is so much content for people even willing to pay a small amount. However, there is a quality question and a lot of what's out there is bad, so quality and content is the measure. Caleb said that the only other crash he can foresee is that if these things start supporting people's lives as a career and then they begin chasing the money, perhaps from dubious sources. But, the thing with a bubble... no one can see it.

Now my response to their response. Yes, I realize already that this is ridiculous.

First, Ross is absolutely right. It's not a nerd economy, though I think traditional nerdy areas are a significant portion of it. Consider that Twitch is a huge component of this new economy and almost exclusively, until recently, catered to video game streamers. Comedy channels, beauty channels, news, music, and other entertainment are a significant portion of the market out there.

Two things, I think, prompted me to ask this question. The first is the number of people/groups that have held out a tin cup and asked for me to chip in. At first it was semi-professional outfits so I could appreciate them seeking some financial compensation. However, a growing number of amateurs beginning with a Patreon page was a tad galling to me. Perhaps that is because I was introduced to it as a tool for fans to supplement income and not as a third-party subscription service. There does seem to be a growing number that feel this can be their meal ticket, and that concerns me from a rational and pragmatic point of view. Caleb is right, if you want a little spending money, great, but this isn't grounds for a career.

Decades past young people would dream of becoming actors or athletes. Now they want to be "YouTube famous." A surprising number of my students have their own YouTube channels. They talk to me about building their audiences and their subscriber counts. As most of us know various platforms offer only a pittance for advertising. I am also concerned about the pressures they might feel to gain eyeballs and the wisdom of the decisions chasing those metrics. In short, I worry about exploitation. Platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and Instagram make incredible profits off of naive, young creators. The low barrier to entry is both a blessing and a curse. We have so much content, but it does look like "anyone can do it" which ignores the economic and personal costs in chasing these dreams. Sometimes it feels like creators are chasing the lowest common denominator in order to gain any kind of attention, which hardly seems healthy. 

Another aspect of this that I wonder about is the exploitation of a small amount of productive people by 'critics.' Whenever a television series becomes even modestly popular it spawns a bevy of podcasts, video casts and reviews. It starts to feel like an entirely false economy based on the machine of whatever movie sequel Disney pumps out. How many review channels/podcasts can the market sustain? 

I grew up, like most of us, in a free media environment. Television, radio, newspapers, and the internet was largely free on the basis that advertising would pay for the content. The audience wasn't the customer, it was the product. Trends seems to indicate that the audience will have to pay for anything resembling quality content with subscriptions. This is a seismic mental shift for many people; it certainly is for me. I feel vaguely guilty about the media that I enjoy that I don't support (ex. Canadaland). Still, if I donated to the 30+ podcasts I listen to and the dozen or so YouTube channels I watch on a semi-regular basis, plus Netflix, and on and on, we are talking about a pretty expensive media diet. As I'm economically limited it would mean a big change to my habits.

I wish that I could easily accept the position that this is a beautiful time. A thousand flowers bloom and creators can receive financial support for their work. It's a grand meritocracy! Except it isn't. A handful of giant corporations (Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon) control a huge stake in this developing industry. A few start ups and independents have significant sway, but if you look at the top YouTube channels that are increasingly dominated by corporate media. I've thought about starting my own YouTube channel, or podcast to reflect my interests, and I have been on podcasts in the past, so I understand the impulse to participate in this low risk, low cost field. Creators should be paid for their efforts, but I'm uncertain of our current arrangement. So the question is whether or not this is a permanent change or a bubble. I'm not sure I know which side I want to win out.

Young Politicians and Social Media Baggage

It is unlikely that many people know the name Deborah Drever. She was recently elected to be the MLA for Calgary-Bow for the NDP. However a string of discoveries on her social media accounts gained media attention which embarrassed the party. After a photo came to light that contained a homophobic slur the party moved to suspend Drever from the caucus. 

To be clear I do not intend to defend Ms. Drever. What I will say is that the 26-year-old MLA is being judged for photos from when she was 19-years-old in some cases. Some of them are far more recent and the frivolity of youth provides limited cover to her statements. I am only one year older than Ms. Drever and as a person who has participated in politics and thought about a career in the partisan side of government I have often feared what comments I have made on Twitter or Facebook or elsewhere on the internet that can come back to haunt me. I can easily recall things I've said in jest that out of context would be humiliating for a public figure.

Deborah Drever is not an outlier but an omen. We have had politicians behaving badly on social media before, that's not new, what is new is a younger person who has spent years on social media being asked to account for comments they made well before they entered the public sphere. It seems to me that this is a question that our political culture is going to have to increasingly wrestle with because there will soon come a time when all politicians have this sort of baggage.

It reminds me a bit of the episode of The West Wing, The Supremes, when they have to nominate a Supreme Court justice but anyone with controversial decisions has to be nixed from contention. That is until they figure out how to put Donna's parents' cats on the bench. This is a tangent... The point is that people live their lives on social media and to our great misfortune privacy is becoming increasingly difficult to preserve, especially for those who wish to engage in the political discourse. I've heard it said that social media has basically transformed everyone into a public figure to greater or lesser degree.

On a somewhat related note I heard a tidbit from the UK election that had me wondering. From the BBC I heard that every MP elected under the age of 30 was a member of a political family. To me this raised real questions about whether or not there was room for young Members of Parliament outside of nepotism. The NDP has trumpeted successful elections of younger candidates in 2011 federally and in Alberta this May but that came during a wave. Would these young men and women have even been considered for this opportunity if they were not perceived to be such long shots?

I would hope that in coming years we will be respectful to candidates and barring seriously controversial material we can ignore the things that are a little more embarrassing to drag out in the public eye. However, I would say that things such as blog posts or essays written by politicians could be fodder for questioning. Dissecting someone's character from 140 characters seems far less valuable.

What worries me is that this is a simple story for partisans to find and journalists to report. Instead we are more likely to humiliate those who come forward into public life, which again raises questions about how will we engage the next generation to become leaders and take on positions of authority within our communities.

Shallow Politics: Canadian Politics and Media

In the back of my mind on Tuesdays I am always thinking about what I am going to write. Sometimes the news of the day just doesn’t provide me with the materials I want to work with. Today I saw these tweets on Twitter from a Toronto-based journalist:

Trudeau using Layton words all over evening news. Serious Q: How is this relevant? Senate, omnibus bills, ANYTHING ELSE
— Ashley Csanady (@AshleyCsanady) November 26, 2013

There's a lot of serious, serious issues facing our country. Should the dauphin's latest gaffe lead national broadcasts?
— Ashley Csanady (@AshleyCsanady) November 26, 2013

You can follow Ms. Csandy at @AshleyCsanady. I highly recommend it.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been pleased with our media, on balance. They have done a good job at holding our dysfunctional politics to some form of account. At least the grubs under the rock are being exposed and we have to deal with it.

However, our media and politics, one must admit, are burdened with an incredible shallowness. Before I take both out behind the metaphorical woodshed, I should add that the public may be largely to blame in this. Politicians and media are serving us, they do not perform this twisted theatre for their own amusement.

Media outlets are hungry for eyeballs, and politicians live and die on their ability to draw attention. These (should be) self-evident truths, but both groups have learned an important lesson in the modern era: emotion is more valuable than reason. I should probably couch that claim in that it is as old as the Age of Reason itself. Ironically we are re-learning it with disastrous consequences for public life.

I recently finished reading Sasha Issenberg’s book The Victory Lab. One of the key discoveries is that people seem to be rarely swayed from their political positions. Political campaigners used to believe that with the correct policies voters could be won over. From my understanding this was particularly prominent problem among the Democrats. However, people are not interested in marginal tax rates and infrastructure programs, they are interested in values. It is a more complicated concept than I explain in a paragraph, but basically emotional factors and whether or not a voter feels connected to a candidate has far more to do with a candidate’s likelihood of success than policy. Policy can reflect this values, but it seems the latter informs the former, rather than vice versa. This was famously captured in the “who would you rather have a beer with?” question. With fundamentally different approaches to foreign policy and the world voters were often more split on a question of personal comfort.

Combine this with realities of new (and old) media and you start to get a rather unsettling picture of what our public discourse may one day become. Consider Ms. Csanady’s tweets. If evening news programs decided to lead with the recently introduced Conservative crime omnibus bill and framed it as a dispassionate discussion of the impact of criminal charges to cable thieves (or another nail in our parliament’s coffin) I sincerely doubt many outside the hardest of political junkies would have stayed tuned in.

Justin Trudeau (LPC – Papineau, QC) is a strong embodiment of this problem to my opinion. His strong name recognition and (inexplicable to me) public appeal means that any story that features him would attract disproportionate part of the political-news audience. By invoking the name Jack Layton, a politician that many Canadians have at least a passing affection for, and setting Trudeau loyalists against New Democrats you have set the stage for meaningless conflict that has great appeal.

The Rob Ford saga presents a similar problem. Often elements of the story that were more salacious made headlines and grabbed attention. The lewd comment Ford made regarding an alleged incident of sexual harassment is a perfect example. In the very same interview Ford confessed to drinking and driving. A crime that most Canadians take very seriously, but because sex and the embarrassment of his wife was involved that was buried. It returned in the later coverage, but it is still an important symbol of what is valued in the current culture.

I sincerely doubt that the politicians from years gone by who we praise could survive in such an environment. The inability for only the most cursory of labels of issues to permeate and the inability for sustained discourse on issues of importance means that our public life is facing a breakdown. Democracy is dependent upon an informed electorate, yet our electorate cannot (or will not) make decisions based upon information. Post-modernists would point out that this fantasy of the rational citizen never really existed. Everyone is burdened with their own peculiar set of bias and dispositions; there is no dispassionate evaluation of policy choices.

Debates and elections are no longer battles of ideas, but battles of personality. In such a shallow measure it should not be surprising that those with more persona than sense rise to the top and those bookish politicians who prefer to concentrate languish in obscurity. As a trend it is hard to imagine it changing any time soon, if at all. There is rarely great thoughtfulness or eloquence in 140 characters or a 10 second sound-bite. In a system where power is often bestowed to he/she who can hold the spotlight longest is it any surprise things begin to look more and more like a circus? 

Trying to Understand Idle No More

I have a great deal of mixed emotions when it comes to the Idle No More movement. I think this largely stems from the personal context in which I view the protests. For those who may be unaware I wrote my Master’s major research paper on the topic of Aboriginal protest in the Northwest Territories over the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline in the 1970s. My interpretation was that First Nations, Inuit and Metis leaders were fundamental in halting development until terms could be agreed to more favourable to them. I took a keen interest in Canadian-Aboriginal history and the Native-Newcomer relationship throughout my post-secondary education. My mentor at Brock University was Dr. Maureen Lux, a leading expert in the field of Aboriginal history in Canada, particularly as it relates to healthcare and medicine. In addition, I am an Aboriginal-Canadian. To be specific my family is from the Qalipu band of the Mi’kmaq of Newfoundland.

That all being said I have become very uncomfortable presenting myself as an Aboriginal-Canadian. I grew up in the suburbs of Brampton, in a comfortable lower-middle class family. To the vast majority of people I appear to be fully Caucasian, and therefore have more than likely benefitted from the intrinsic biases in our culture and society. Any premise I offer as an Aboriginal living in Canada feels, at least to my mind, deeply flawed. As a counterpoint though I must wonder, should it? Does being Aboriginal in Canada mean you have to look a certain way, live on a reserve, be denied certain opportunities simply because who you are? It is a cold way to create “authentic” and “inauthentic” Aboriginals in this country, much like the debate about “blackness” within the United States.

And then there is the debate surrounding Idle No More. Debate may be too polite a word for the clashing of words and gnashing of teeth that it really represents. There are those out there that dismiss the concerns of the Idle No More movement completely, and in fact would like to see existing Aboriginal rights reduced to a minimum, if not eliminated entirely. While I would hope that these views are motivated by ignorance there is more than likely a few in the throng who have maliciousness against First Nations, Metis and Inuit people when they say what they say.

However, those who question Idle No More, its leaders or program cannot simply label these critics racists. It is lazy, and simplistic. Criticism needs to be responded to by facts, not slurs. Twitter, sadly, and all the internet, is more conducive to the quick jab and not the nuanced argument.

Some of the rhetoric around the protest on behalf of its supporters makes me very uncomfortable. To be clear I am a supporter of Aboriginal rights and want to see treaties upheld and the appalling conditions on reserves come to an end, but the language employed by other supporters of Idle No More causes me pause and makes me wonder if I am truly aligned with those who use it. I don’t think I can look at current government policy and agree with Pam Palmater that a genocide is occurring in Canada. I cannot accept that most major columnists in Canada are virulent racists.

While reading posts supportive of Idle No More a different term kept floating around that made me uneasy. Several of the posters were using the term “settlers” to describe non-Native Canadians. The term is fair enough, I suppose, but I can’t help but scratch beneath the surface of the word. The French elements of my family tree arrived in Canada roughly two hundred years ago. After two centuries in Newfoundland are my family members still “settlers”? It is not as though we know any other home besides Canada. What about New Canadians? Those who have arrived from the Caribbean, or India, or China? Are they settlers? These territories were colonized (often by the same empires as Canada) too. They have very minimal connection to the history of abuse and racism between the state and indigenous peoples.

Idle No More can be seen as a far more specific, influential and widespread iteration of the Occupy Movement, but it suffers from all of the same weaknesses: its demands are diffuse; it has no clear leadership; it is composed of diverse groups with distinct interests; it has no way to measure success or failure. Unlike Occupy, Idle No More has invested activists and supporters, but I fear if/when it produces no results it will only result in an angrier and perhaps more radical community.

As a historian I have become very, very cynical and pessimistic about Aboriginal-governmental relations. The various indigenous communities across this country do not have common goals, each one faces their own unique set of circumstances. No government policy will result in a panacea. Tailoring policies for each community will be exhaustive and take an extraordinary amount of time. There are no easy answers. Even solutions that may be commonsense, like getting the provinces to extend social services, are fraught with problems of treaty rights and responsibilities. What’s worse is that it often feels like opposing sides in these discussions not only have their own opinions, but their own facts which cannot be reconciled with each other.

Obviously this piece offers very few answers. Canada is a colonial nation with a colonial legacy. Sadly we have not done enough to change that legacy. A series of half-measures and assimilationist policies have done incredible damage to communities, and now we are left to try to figure out what to do next. Idle No More as a movement may not be providing the answers we need, but it is at least raising the questions we need to ask.

Second Anniversary of the Orange Tory!

On June 22, 2010 I decided to reboot my blog. Since that time I have been posting weekly ever since. The past twelve months have been very good for my blog. The audience has consistently grown and this year my post about electoral reform in Ontario received hundreds of hits within a few days. I attribute my modest success to a growing social environment for Canadian politics. The Ontario provincial, federal and NDP leadership elections helped develop interest in this blog. The politics of the Conservative majority parliament have also provided a lot of fodder for political commentators, even amateurs such as me.

As this milestone approached I began to ponder what I wanted the Orange Tory blog to look like by the time the third anniversary rolled around. One of the biggest changes was to begin writing more than once a week. A friend of mine once told me when I started this blog that the most important thing is to post regularly. By now people know that once a week on Tuesdays a fresh post is coming their way. Still, no one swings by my blog multiple times a week to see what I’m writing. It simply isn’t necessarily. With me being a Master’s student it is not plausible to go to a daily schedule. Twice a week is possible, and something I’m considering.

Another aspect I’m considering is new features. Many of my favourite blogs are not only essays. My favourite bloggers post collections of their favourite articles from the week or day, guest columns, or special themes, etc. While I want to keep my opinion/news pieces the heart of this blog I have no problem expanding what I present. Related to this, a friend of mine and I are working on a new feature presently. I cannot promise that it will come to anything at this stage, but we’ll see. I would love to hear back from people for suggestions of what they might want to see in the future.

That all being said I want to sincerely thank my readers. It is incredibly rewarding to know that people have been enjoying and gaining something from the work I do here. It definitely encourages me to keep up the process.

Thanks again, and I look forward to the next year and all it may bring.

Personal Chat with Nathan Cullen

Recently I won the Photos for Change competition held by the Nathan Cullen campaign (Skeena-Bulkley Valley, BC – NDP), along with two others. The purpose of the contest was to take a photo of your community that demonstrated why it is important to work together.

St. Catharines, ON from Brock University.

This is the photo I submitted. The photo is taken from the 10^th floor of Schmon Tower at Brock University looking north to St. Catharines. In my description I said that the NDP will need to win ridings like St. Catharines to form a majority government, and that in St. Catharines often a majority of voters select left-wing parties, but the Conservatives hold the riding. After I was selected by the Team Cullen volunteers we arranged the call.

I must admit to being nervous before Mr. Cullen called. I think given my relative greenness in politics I’m still a little starstruck when meeting MPs and MPPs, though I am increasingly learning they are just regular people, for the most part. In addition I had met Mr. Cullen at an event in Welland, Ontario a few weeks ago.

Before calling me up Mr. Cullen and his team must have done a little checking on my involvement with the campaign because he immediately spoke to my involvement on the social media element. On that basis Mr. Cullen seemed quite interested in picking my brain over the role social media has in elections, how can it be used and where I think the leadership contest is at present. Our discussion about social media’s importance was particularly interesting, in my opinion. We both approach the issue from different perspectives – as candidate and a participant. Mr. Cullen told me that the social media numbers has been useful for the campaign in terms of media. The media like numbers, he said, and by being able to demonstrate interest the campaign can build a narrative and a story, and most important, gain attention.

Ironically, I pointed out the more pragmatic aspect of a social media audience. I argued that it could be used as an effective fundraising tool. If everyone one of Mr. Cullen’s 8632 Facebook followers donated $10 it would be a huge surge in fundraising. I argued that with large amounts of small donations, like the Obama 2008 campaign, it would be possible to return to those donors over and over again without exhausting them. Unsurprisingly this seemed to intrigue the leadership candidate.

Despite it being a brief phone call, lasting only 15-20 minutes I felt it highly meaningful. To be thanked by the candidate himself for my contribution to the discussion and the campaign made it feel like I was having a real influence on the outcome. After hanging up the phone I tweeted “It's a very different style of campaign, an accessible and open leader will be important in politics from here on out.” In this digital era people want to feel ownership of, and connection to their candidates. The fact that when I get a thank you call from the Cullen campaign for a donation it comes from a person is quite pleasant. The campaign has also taken on the mantra of “No robocalls!”, so all of their interactions are done by a person on the other end. Frankly after this campaign I’ll be happy to not hear another pre-recorded message for a while. To be able to directly interact with the campaign with social media is important to me. In fact, I was recruited by the campaign after making a positive remark about Mr. Cullen on Twitter during a debate by his dedicated followers.

The role of social media in future elections is unclear, but that’s part of this process. I think Team Cullen is on the right track with a lot of their moves, and more could be developed still. Furthermore, how this would work in a national campaign against rival parties is the real question.

Still, the conversation did not go the way I expected. I thought we would talk more about issues. I wanted to share my thoughts about the Enbridge pipeline and the connections to my own research for my major research paper on the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline project of the 1970s. Also I wanted to discuss an NDP strategy to appeal to and win the suburbs and rural areas of Canada, but there simply was not time. The fact that time was given at all important, and few people get such an opportunity, so I am not complaining.

I do not know who will win the leadership of the NDP. The preferential ballot could lead to an entirely unforeseen outcome. Hopefully the other campaigns are learning and adapting from this experience to become stronger organizations for the true test in 2015.