Platform Power and the Risks of Digital Convenience
A Discussion with Students at Leiden University
Our digital experiences are quickly becoming dominated by a small number of seemingly indispensable platforms. We share images on Instagram, connect through services like What’s App and WeChat, and increasingly receive our news through Facebook – indeed to such an extent that Facebook is changing how politics work. Our access to information is in the hands of a small number of companies, first and foremost Google, which dominates the market for online search to such a degree that its market share ‘is already a rounding error from 100%’ in most countries’ (Edelman 2011: 32). Many of these companies try to create what is called ‘lock-in’: a situation in which users are pushed to remain within a convenient array of interconnected services and products, often through technical standards and protocols that create dependencies. Lock-in keeps customers from bouncing to competitors to buy their products elsewhere. It also prevents users from leaving their valuable data points with other services. Platforms thrive on the analysis and sale of user data, prompting observers to warn that users are being turned into media themselves. At the core of these processes lies the platform, and importantly: the platform power that designers and ultimately owners of such crucial digital technologies wield.
Platform power is generated in no small part because getting ‘locked in’ by a company like Google or Apple is extremely convenient for users. Yet this convenience comes at a price. Security expert Bruce Schneier (2015) has compared the situation to feudalism, arguing that the current make-up of the net is forcing users to ‘pledge allegiance to the United States of convenience’. This creates serious security concerns, since the companies that offer seemingly ‘free’ services or convenient product suites are not transparent enough about how they use their customers’ data. What is more, a small number of corporations are now filtering our media usage for us, designing the algorithms through which we perceive reality (Pariser 2011). Should we hand this kind of power to just a few players who do not have to disclose how the backend of their digital operation works? Of course, opting out of Apple, Google, or Facebook is theoretically possible, but is it practical? Just try to go about daily life in China today without making use of Tencent’s WeChat. For most people, this is not an option. The platform is already too integrated into everyday social, commercial, and political activities.
Indeed, East Asia is a particularly interesting place to explore platform power. The platform approach has a long history in Japan, as Marc Steinberg (2017) recently discussed in his contribution to a special issue on regional platforms in Asiascape: Digital Asia. Japan and South Korea are each home to companies that are perfecting the platform approach, e.g. Sony with its range of hardware and entertainment products, or Samsung with its strong mobile services. Interestingly, when it comes to social media, East Asian societies have pushed back against what Dal Yong Jin (2017) calls ‘platform imperialism’, embracing somewhat different products than those that dominate Europe or America. Facebook and Twitter are important, but Line in Japan and Kakao in Korea have taken up core positions of their own. In China, the so-called BATs (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent) are powerfully dividing up the local market, at times fiercely competing for users. Each is generating platform power through interlinked services that allow users to not just communicate with others, but to order cabs, rent bikes, shop online, and transfer money.
Alibaba is emerging quickly as a platform giant in that context. Its retail and peer-to-peer commercial services are generating dizzying profits, while Alibaba’s payment service Alipay is creating a parallel economy in which the Chinese Yuan is transferred into Alibaba’s own payment network. Keeping and spending money in that system is convenient, and it promises to move China towards a cashless economy. The fact that Alibaba requires retailers and wholesalers to submit to its system of down-payments and securities generates huge digital money reserves that the company can re-invest to generate yet more profit, through interests. These processes, along with Alibaba’s ability to vacuum up user data, have caught the attention of China’s Communist Party, which is experimenting with its own cryptocurrency schemes, e-government platforms (Schlæger 2013), media platforms, and social credit systems to reinvent how power works in the information age.
As part of our Leiden University seminar on the Politics of Digital East Asia, I have asked our graduate students to share and debate their views about power, platforms, search engines and their epistemological relevance, and the meaning of ‘convenience’ in digital ecologies. How powerful are platform in the East Asian region and beyond? Should the move towards integrated platforms that connect different markets be a matter of concern, or is it an opportunity that creates hitherto unknown levels of access to crucial services? Who benefits and who suffers from the radical re-mapping of social, economic, and political processes through digital platforms? These are the questions that this week’s debate about digital East Asia focuses on. Join us below, in the comment section, with your opinions, ideas, and any interesting resources you find worth sharing.
References
Edelman, Benjamin (2011), ‘Bias in Search Results? Diagnosis and Response’. The Indian Journal of Law and Technology, 7, 16-32.
Jin, Dal Yong (2017), ‘Rise of Platform Imperialism in the Networked Korean Society: A Critical Analysis of the Corporate Sphere’. Asiascape: Digital Asia, 4(3), 209-232.
Pariser, Eli (2011), The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think. New York et al.: Penguin.
Schlæger, Jesper (2013), E-Government in China: Technology, Power and Local Government Reform. Abingdon & New York: Routledge.
Schneider, Bruce (2015), Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World. New York & London: W.W. Norton.
Steinberg, Marc (2017), ‘A Genesis of the Platform Concept: i-mode and Platform Theory in Japan’. Asiascape: Digital Asia, 4(3), 184-208.
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About the Author: Florian Schneider
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Talking about the power of WeChat, I think it is important to consider it does not only influence the life of the youth but also empower the elder generation into social network. Check the link:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-04/02/content_19978255.htm
(Yeah I know China Daily is controversial. But it is relatively neutral on this topic.
On the topic of “lock-in”, I agree that we should stay alert and do not get “locked” in the companies’ consumer pitfall. But as an Internet user myself, I think most companies do not have good enough co-products to form a closed product chains and lock the customers in. For example, is there anyone still using g-talk?
I haven’t even heard of G-talk! But I don’t think the quality of competing products is the main component of why other companies fail The problem is that the market completely favours established companies. It is easier for Tencent to add another service to their closed digital ecosystem than it is for competing companies to first pull users to their base service and then add more services to create a new digital ecosystem. Human psychology also favours convenience, creating another big challenge for companies entering the market.
Dot not forget that Google owns quite a lot of companies.. Also apple has a big share with Iphone/Imessage/Macbook etc.The most problematic to me is the combination of tech produce and the search engine that google owns. This could result in some very dense (personal) information.
To both Joost and Mischa. Just to make myself clear, I am not saying that products’ quality decides everything. What I wanted to say is that admitting the power of platforms, users still own limited freedom to make their own choices.
That is certainly true! Unfortunately it seems that users don’t seem to realise how much power being locked in gives companies until they’re already completely locked in and it’s harder to leave (should they want to leave).
I completely agree with what Mischa and Joost say. Especially Google is trying its absolute hardest to try to get users locked in. Think about Google Fiber, offering the fastest internet there is right now, and they are even continually pushing Google Plus. Very few people use Google Plus, but they were very persistant about having everyone use it. (http://mashable.com/2015/08/02/google-plus-history/#UXHS2Fzabsq2)
Very true Steef, Google has now even started to build a city: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/24/google-alphabet-sidewalk-labs-toronto.
I perfectly get all the observation you made. In fact, it is not too big a leap to figure out how both technological and psychological factors might impinge on the perpetuation of the current state of affairs. Still, we need to shed a light on another crucial factor. Directly linking to the final paper I am going to write for Dr Schneider’s course, I would talk about the spread of WeChat in Italy as a key case.
Even though Tencent’s messaging platform already put down roots in Italy in 2014, it does not manage to overcome other competitors yet (e.g. WhatsApp). In fact, despite its more than 10 million users, Wechat is still less appealing than already affirmed similar application. In my opinion, although the platform design factors – for instance, Italian users are used to relying on Whatsapp mostly because of its simple platform interface– the main problem in boosting the spread of Tencent’s app in Italy is still (for how longer?)the cultural distance between my country and China. When I asked Italian users why they do not start to rely on WeChat exclusively, most of the times they answered me: “Because it is Chinese!”
Hence, it is more than worth to investigate the cultural environment, the political stance of government toward one platform’s country of origin, in order to conduct a discussion that might embrace all the facets.
That is interesting, since what seems to be an apparent innocent will of including the elders in the social community could turn out to be only another extension of the power of control.
Surprisingly, the influence of WeChat extends to the field of social and political activism, not only through censorship but in a certan way, favoring “small groups”. That’s why Chinese activists continue to use it, not deterred by its limitations.
https://thediplomat.com/2016/03/wechat-frenemy-of-chinese-activists/
I don’t think that getting ‘’locked in’’ by certain companies is something that should be taken lightly. We probably only know what the consequences are of a ‘’lock in’’ on a surface level while only being able to imagine what could be there under the surface. However, I do believe that the majority of us know that we always have to ‘’hand in’’ something of ourselves in order to receive or make use of something online – but is it worth it to trade parts of our personal information in order to make use of all these handy and beneficial platforms?
It is undeniable that we are being watched very closely on the internet – but aren’t we (consciously and/or unconsciously) submitting ourselves to these companies and services? Can we always say that ‘’power’’ is in the hands of the providers and that the user is helpless? We voluntarily provide information about ourselves (on social media for instance) which can be used to create certain patterns and predictions of our internet use (such as behavioral targeting). It is often the case that individuals don’t even know that their online actions are being observed – so does it really matter in the end?
This is all just food for thought. Maybe you could share your ideas on the abovementioned questions (if you like).
Also, this is a blog post on the virtual panopticon that I found interesting.
https://philosophyforchange.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/foucault-and-social-media-life-in-a-virtual-panopticon/#comments
I think you are overestimating how many people realise that they ‘hand in’ something when they use online services; people generally aren’t aware how much information on their likes and behaviour is worth, so they would consider most services as being completely free.
As for power, while users do actively submit themselves to these companies, it is important to remember that the game is completely slanted in the campanies’ favour. Just about every aspect of a website or application is designed so as to make using it as convenient as possible. Users of course like this convenience, but it also makes it harder to leave.
I agree with you that a lot of us don’t know what we ‘hand in’ when we make use of online services. Also, the fact that we don’t know exactly whom has access to our information, makes it even more questionable. In my opinion, there should be more clarity on this topic.
Although participation is indeed voluntarily, I think it is difficult to completely abstain from it as well. So, in that sense there is also some peer pressure involved. Especially when it is that embedded in our every day lives; when (almost) everyone around us, including companies, makes use of it. I believe this is the case in China. Furthermore, companies like Tencent design these services as such that it is not only convenient to participate, but also a lot of fun and addictive. For example, after the Chinese tradition of the red packets was incorporated into Wechat, the popularity of the platform grew explosively.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3065255/china-wechat-tencent-red-envelopes-and-social-money
Madrigal’s article about ‘What Facebook did to American Democracy’ is exemplary of the state of panic the legacy media find themselves in over the loss of their gatekeeping function. Ominous forces are chipping away at their hegemony over the narrative of current affairs: Breitbart, Macedonian fake news hustlers, troll countercultures and most importantly Russian hackers; the Cold War reds under the bed of the 21st century. It remains to be seen if Facebook’s new campaigns to combat what it considers misinformation will be able to turn the tide when it is time for the 2018 midterm elections.
Meanwhile, in Japan, the online spread of misinformation did not have a major influence on this year’s election. And while fact-checking initiatives are increasing, fake news in Japan is far from the hot issue it is in the United States (and the Netherlands for that matter). According to Masato Kajimoto, Japanese have high trust in the legacy media and don’t use twitter, Facebook and LINE to share news articles all that much.
Source: http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/10/a-snap-election-and-global-worries-over-fake-news-spur-fact-checking-collaborations-in-japan/
Could this high trust and lack of interest in sharing articles around explain the lack of a major outrage over fake news in Japan? By that I mean that the Japanese legacy media, if Kajimoto is to be believed, don’t face as much competition from alternative media as their US counterparts. Therefore, they do not need to stir up outrage over misinformation to protect their control over both the news market and public opinion.
Reuters institute has done a really elaborate study on this too (http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2017/japan-2017/). According to those findings it does seem that the legacy media are extremely influential, but at the same time they don’t enjoy exceedingly high levels of trust actually (they rank 17th out of the 38 countries surveyed).
What might add to the case of Japan is the value that Japanese internet users seem to attach to their privacy: “a survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) in 2014, showed that the Japanese are reluctant to use real names in social media, preferring anonymity online. This tendency has also affected the popularity of LinkedIn, which is used by only 1% of respondents.”
Insofar that holds this might explain why public sharing of news articles is not so popular in the Japanese context. After all, whenever you share something online you are revealing yourself in one way or another ;)
https://www.whatsonweibo.com/5-teenage-girls-sentenced-prison-bullying-classmates-posting-campus-violence-videos-online/
Talking about platforms and power, I want to ask: Who has got the power here? Several actors play a role: people who post ‘campus violence videos’ on platforms, people who like this trend but do not post the videos themselves, people who hate the trend but don’t do anything, the Beijing Court, that now sentenced a group of bullies to prison, …
I think this article shows that platforms, or especially users of platforms can have a very negative power.
I wonder where lies the power in this story? The bullies used WeChat as a platform, which gave them a lot of power over their victims. On the other hand, the Beijing Court used their power to punish them, but how about the cases that didn’t get punished?
Thanks for sharing this shocking case. What I find interesting about this story is that the bullies post the videos on WeChat while the story was covered by Sina Weibo. As we all know, WeChat and Sina Weibo are two of the biggest social media in China. Is that possible that there is a business competition hiding underneath the “anti-bully” report?
Also, the report did not explain if the video was posted on WeChat talks or WeChat moments (Friends’ Circle). I think that affects the answer to your questions that “people who like this trend but do not post the videos themselves, people who hate the trend but don’t do anything”.
Besides, if the video was posted in moments, which is relatively public, WeChat may have to do something about it. But if the video was posted in private/group talks, won’t that invade users’ privacy if WeChat censors the talking log? (Sure WeChat is doing it, but is it right?)
Apparently, giving information to the government is part of protecting user’s privacy… http://technode.com/2017/09/19/now-its-official-wechat-is-watching-you-1/
As a WeChat user, I never paid attention to all these terms. I just shared this to my families back in China. Their reaction, I think, is typical Chinese. They believe that collecting information online is what a good government should do and “if you have not done anything wrong, then you should not be worried that someone checks your information”.
My usual response to that argument is that even if you really have nothing to hide or have done nothing wrong, you don’t know how social norms and the political climate will change. Utterances and actions we consider innocent now might become offensive enough for people to lose their job and social benefits or even warrant persecution in the future.
I agree with S.V. Something that is not considered important or offensive information now, can come back at you at a different level. Personally, I think that a ‘good’ government should be aware of what happens in their country, but up until a certain level. What that level might be, is very difficult to determine.
It’s clear that no one ever pays attention to these terms, but I think that we are no different; we also agree on terms that give companies rights to use all the data we give them. And S.V.’s argument also counts for this: We don’t know what will happen in the future and how this will come back to us…
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2027098?seq=1#page_scan_tab_content
Probably you will agree with neither Kant nor Hegel ( Basically, I don’t either), but I wish this article may add some theoretical background on the meaning of free agency.
I’m not exactly sure how the government could use that information to protect the user’s, but another interesting thing is that according to this article, most millennials are willing to trade their privacy for security (http://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-willing-to-trade-privacy-for-safety-online-2015-6?international=true&r=US&IR=T).
But is this really the world we want to live in? These milllennials have grown up in the age of technology, a time of peace. Giving your data to companies in order to use their services is normal in their eyes. Yet, and I revert back to Edward Snowden, people were shocked by what the NSA did. Some things changed, yes, but things have also gotten worse. For example, Facebook is now actively listening to your conversations in order to provide better ads (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-using-people-s-phones-to-listen-in-on-what-they-re-saying-claims-professor-a7057526.html).
How many more Snowdens need to come before we will stand up to these large companies using our data for their own good?
I’m afraid that any amount of Snowdens will produce just about the same result as the first: a whole lot of public outrage and a whole lot of nothing changing.
The best thing we can hope for is the rise of alternatives to dominant platforms. Think of Minds, DuckDuckGo an Vidme for example. Then again, it might be too late for that and who’s to say such platforms will not be prone to corruption and abuse of power if they get big?
Yes! I was wondering about DuckDuckGo, although more from a perspective of usability (http://tinyurl.com/weekofduckduckgo). Do you think that many users would be willing to give up all the convenience that Google offers (such as personalised searches & ‘smart’ searches)? Also, have you ever tried to use DuckDuckGo? I have to agree with the author of the attached article in that I noticed that it was quite difficult to use after becoming so used to Google. On the other hand, Google does offer a lot of privacy settings through which you can turn off personalised ads, tracking, etc. Also with plug-ins such as Ghostery & Adblock Plus you can limit what these companies assemble from you to quite a considerable extent. So maybe it is also to the responsibility of the consumer if we are unwilling to let the governments govern?
I frequently use DuckDuckgo, it is the default search engine on Pale Moon.
I do have to admit often using google anyway when DuckDuckGo fails, as it usually does when I search for content in Dutch or Chinese. When using any language other than English, DuckDuckGo unfortunately still has a long way to go. So at this point in time, I find it hard to give up Google’s convenience.
(This is a reply to Ales just in case it ends up at the wrong spot. Some reply buttons seem to have disappeared)
I agree with S.V.’s claim on the unpredictability those who will take power in the future. It is mostly the social and political environment that dictates how power manifest itself. Especially in the context of the European crisis, the shift in power relations is more visible. Accordingly, what a better means than platforms to pick a slice of the cake without being exposed to the spotlight?
I would argue that the main benefactor of the dominance of a singular platform in a society after of course the company itself is the local government. Taking the case of KakaoTalk in South Korea, KakaoTalk is virtually impossible to live without in South Korea nowadays in the same way that Whatsapp dominates European mobile messaging. KakaoTalk was considered an unproblematic and convenient way of messaging until around 2014 when millions of users fled the app because of a crackdown on any insults towards the government. (https://www.theverge.com/2014/10/6/6926205/surveillance-drives-south-koreans-to-encrypted-messaging-apps) After that, people, especially journalists (still!), started to use the app Telegram to communicate about any government sensitive matters. KakaoTalk since implemented a special “secret/ecrypted chat” option, but I haven’t heard people be positive about it. Personally I’ve experienced Koreans asking me to halt a conversation about the usage of softdrugs because they said it wasn’t safe to talk about illegal matters on KakaoTalk. If they can get a hold of an app like Kakaotalk, the information that goes through it is an absolute goldmine to the government in the case that they gain access to it. This access is simply a law away, as we see with the current WIF issue in the Netherlands. So I don’t know if the government would even want to crackdown on the creation of such huge bubbles of convenience. It traps all the information in one, convenient place for them, in case they may need to use it.
What you shared reminds me of what happened in Sina Weibo this year earlier. In this September, many users who had been participating in the feminism/governance/human right/democracy discussions were either blocked or deleted from Weibo. It was at the same time that more words became “sensitive” on WeChat. While Koreans turned to Telegram, their Asian neighbor found “Antidote” because it is believed this encrypted chatting app does not have any server. There was a trend when everyone was sharing their antidote usernames.
I wonder in the Korean case, does the crackdown really changed their social media using habit? Do they stick to Telegram since then or go back to Kakao? In the Chinese case, though many people followed the trend and registered antidote (myself included), most accounts have never been used. We are still locked in Weibo and WeChat.
Oh wow, that’s taking the crackdown to a whole new level. Regarding your question, I don’t believe the social media habits of South Koreans changed after 2014. If any, Kakaotalk seems to be growing more and more, expanding its array of sister-apps and trying to expand their bubble of convenience. As far as I know, Telegram seems reserved for those who wish to speak of the government without it listening in, so mostly reporters, I would guess.
Our fear for the government collecting our data is actually quite interesting. A while ago I was able to attend a lecture where this issue came up during the Q&A, and the way the issue was framed was that now that society is shifting to data as our primary capital good, governments need our data in order to ‘serve’ us effectively. Basically, what is at stake is who do we want to give our data to? Our democratically elected government(s) or FB/Google/etc.?
(Check out: https://vimeo.com/240573467 for the full lecture)
I think this is an interesting point indeed. As Kayleigh and Boyu mentioned about the S Korean and Chinese case, where users switched to alternative communication applications out of fear that their governments might misuse their data, a similar trend happened in the Netherlands and I believe also in other Western countries. I remember that when Facebook bought Whatsapp, it became a hype to change to Telegram, because many feared that FB the company, instead of a government, might misuse ones data. I wonder whether in countries like S Korea and China, the distrust towards companies might be as large as in some Western countries.
As stated in the original post, Google has a lot of influence on internet users. Their ‘free’ services are not free at all, and what they do with the data of their customers is not always clear. However, that is not where it stops. Big platforms like Google have a lot of influence on society:
“This access to information without the curation of trained journalists carries other costs too, leading to an internet rife with misinformation and untruth. Nowhere is that more evident today than in our rancorous U.S. presidential election, where it seems little value is placed on objectivity.” – https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/283085
The power of platforms arises in many different forms in South East Asia. Take for example these articles:
https://www.whatsonweibo.com/wechat-workplace-rising-popularity-enterprise-app-ding-ding/
https://www.techinasia.com/alibaba-goes-social-with-enterprise-chat-app-ding-talk-ding-ding
These articles describe a considerably new app (Ding ding/Dingtalk) launched in 2015 by Alibaba. This app is mainly used by Chinese companies to improve communications between coworkers. On the one hand, many users find this app very convenient. However there is a downside to this app. Since there is an active GPS tracker connected to the app, a letdown is that the boss is always able to watch every step you take. For example, he can see whether you are at work or not. Would you consider this new type of platform to be an improvement at work or not?
It is already quite concerning that your boss can track wherever you go at work, but even more when GPS tracking exceeds the work place. This really counts as ”penetration” of people’s personal lives. Already the idea of the possibility that you can be watched 24/7 would mentally and emotionally drain me.
Thank you for the interesting links. I enjoyed reaching about this since I had no idea something like this existed.
I think it could be an improvement, because people can decide whether or not to download and use the app. On the other hand, if employees are required to use the app, they have to deal with the disadvantages. But still, there are many advantages, especially in a working environment where mobile phones are used all the time. The app has a lot of convenient features that are designed for office work. It is presented as if as long as you just do what you have to do, you won’t get in trouble. Lee says: “I am always at work when I need to be and I never cheat the system. So I think it is very convenient that I no longer need to take my phone and scan a QR code every day to log in to work (…)”.
Still, I think the one who profits most of using DingDing is the boss, because now he can control everyting and make each and every employee do what he/she wants and when he/she wants it.
“I think it could be an improvement, because people can decide whether or not to download and use the app.”
I feel like with how new the app still is, you’re absolutely right in that there’s still a choice for the employee. However, I would argue that whilst the choice is theoretically there, in practice it might not be there as the option to not do it might eventually (once the app becomes a standard in a lot of companies) lead to isolation in the workforce. Therefore, if you want to be a full part of the work environment you are unofficially required to make use of the app, making you forced to accept the tracking-function. This is something that doesn’t sit right with me. Just because it is harmless to those who always play by the rules, doesn’t make it.. not an invasion of privacy.
I think all of you make good points. Just as Aleid points out, the app has so many different features that all contribute to a more convenient and more productive working environment which leads to more efficient communication. However, as C. Lijffijt and Kayleigh are pointing out, the most disadvantage is that it is an invasion of your privacy. In my opinion, this would be a reason to not use the app. Unfortunately if you work in a company where using this app is the norm rather than the exception, I think you are in a way forced by your other coworkers to use this app. The ideal solution: Dingding without the tracking GPS function!
Interesting articles! I didn’t know about the existence of this app either.
There are indeed both benefits and disadvantages to this app. However, I think that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages and just as Aleid mentioned, it is more beneficial for the employer than it is for the employee. In addition, I strongly believe that an app like this will contribute to more stress. According to the article below, technology is one of the causes of the increasing number of people suffering from stress and burnout.
https://journal.thriveglobal.com/stress-and-burnout-in-china-modern-problems-ancient-solutions-e17005a62574
More on Google’s influence, a short film about what Google can do and how they access all that information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCrduFhIqV0
Talking about videos, I find this one very interesting. It is 12 min long, but it is worth it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-79uIRQiAFM
It shows “how big is google”, and presents some interesting matters I was non aware of. First of them is the fact that Google in 2014 bought Deepmind, a cutting edge artificial intelligence company, and it is actually supporting their research about artifical intelligence.
During the same year, Google acquired Nest, a system of smart thermostat, that stores all the data related to your home heating. It even announced the production of its specialized contact lenses, used to monitor the glucose level for diabetics using a non istrusive method.
Briefly, Google is slowly acquiring and controlling all the aspect of the technological universe. This could seem quite frightening, but, on the other hand, there is no other company that has enough resources to do such amazing research and to give birth to such advanced technologies, potentially useful for humanity.
I find it often unbelievable how many people are so ignorant of the data that companies collect from them, it seems to me that they are simply unaware of this and simply want technologies to be more modern, more efficient, more sci-fi… Take the new iPhone X for example (https://www.apple.com/iphone-x/): Apple is promoting the latest iPhone by saying that “your face is now your password. Instead of using a numerical password or ‘simply’ your fingerprint, Apple collects data from your face (more exactly, “more than 30,000 invisible dots to create a precise depth map of your face”). This Face ID can also be used for Apple Pay and to mirror your expressions in ‘animoji’ to “reveal your inner panda, pig or robot”. I feel that many people, especially in Asia, will love these new features without considering the data they are voluntarily giving to Apple.
I think they do state that this ‘face information’ does not leave the actual phone though. So not entirely sure whether this information could be used besides the functions you mention. If this does appear to be the case it could be disastrous to apple as a company..
On the other hand, the US government also wasn’t spying on anyone until Edward Snowden came along and forced the NSA to admit they were. (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/07/reason_clapper_lied_about_nsa_spying/) Apple could be using the information for the wrong reasons without us even knowing.
Yes you are right, according to this article “Face ID data, including mathematical representations of your face, is encrypted and only available to the Secure Enclave. This data never leaves the device. It is not sent to Apple, nor is it included in device backups. Face images captured during normal unlock operations aren’t saved, but are instead immediately discarded once the mathematical representation is calculated for comparison to the enrolled Face ID data.” – https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/17/apple-responds-to-senator-frankens-face-id-privacy-concerns/
The technology that allows for advanced facial recognition is present on the device however, and could possibly be used by others applications IIRC. Apple might handle this facial information in an ethical way but who is to say that other app developers aren’t inclined to store and sell this information?
If you compare Apple’s Iphone X and its face recognition software, with Google Glasses, there is an interesting split. Google actually banned the use of face recognition in its Google Glasses, as it would interfere with privacy laws. This happened in 2013. Now, in 2017, Apple is using face recognition software in their newest phones, which can be used for a plethora of things. Why is the privacy problem no longer an issue anymore? As a society, are we really heading for the right direction here?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jun/03/google-glass-facial-recognition-ban
“I find it often unbelievable how many people are so ignorant of the data that companies collect from them…”
I think most people just don’t think about what they do and what consequences their actions might have. Many people even give their information voluntarily on social media platforms:
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/new-report-underlines-the-power-of-user-generated-content-rising-influence/510155/
This article just published yesterday (https://gizmodo.com/how-facebook-figures-out-everyone-youve-ever-met-1819822691) highlights another feature of Facebook unconsciously collecting your data through algorithms. Facebook does not comment nor elaborates on how it exactly works, but it happens through ‘contact chaining’. The system indicates there might be a possible connection/relation between two individuals if they both have contact information from another shared contact in their data. And if someone else were to upload their contacts to the network, including your data, Facebook does not consider it your “own data”, but that of the uploader.
Should the move towards integrated platforms that connect different markets be a matter of concern, or is it an opportunity that creates hitherto unknown levels of access to crucial services?
I think one of the main problems are not the platforms themselves per se, but that they (often) are monopolies. Take Google for instance. It is not bad per se that it is now the primary search engine in many different countries and provides its users with a variety of other services. The problem lies in that Google understands its market position and is not afraid to use it to its advantage: only a few months ago it was given a fine by the European Commission of €2.42 billion for “abusing dominance as search engine by giving illegal advantage to own comparison shopping service.” Platforms (and the innovation they often represent) do make our lives much easier, and therefore should be welcomed. However, we should also be wary of how they are becoming increasingly monopolistic, and how this can backfire..
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-1784_en.htm
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/27/google-braces-for-record-breaking-1bn-fine-from-eu
That is very interesting, seeing how in 2012 too, the FTC bring an antitrust suit against Google for abusing its dominance over the web to thwart rivals. I think that even though giant search engines do provide us with great convenience and richer knowledge, we should likewise be aware of just how dangerous they can be. We have been given transparency, but it does not come without costs.
Even if Google never did anything shady, the knowledge of its influence (financially or otherwise) should be telling in how we’re all at Google’s mercy; if they can find their loopholes within the law systems or can make their opponents shut up, they win. Google’s existence as an overwhelmingly dominant search engine alone exerts immense pressure on others. Regarding the results of the lawsuit of Google vs FTC, NY Times wrote the following: “The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday handed Google a major victory […] By allowing Google to continue to present search results that highlight its own services, the F.T.C. decision could enable Google to further strengthen its already dominant position on the Internet.”
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/googles-utopian-quest-benevolent-tech-monopoly-of-the-future/467673/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/technology/google-agrees-to-changes-in-search-ending-us-antitrust-inquiry.html
One thing I have been wondering about since the recent Paradise Papers revealed that both Facebook and Twitter were receiving investments from the Russian government: is it better to have your social media be influened by your own government or by another nation’s government? (Ignoring the question of whether it is desirable that social media are being influenced by governments at all). The former being the case in the People’s Republic and the latter being the case in the United States (apparently). Just food for thought. https://www.irishtimes.com/business/paradise-papers-kremlin-owned-firms-linked-to-facebook-twitter-investments-1.3280789
Maybe both? I feel like a country should ultimately be allowed to deal with its own affairs but especially in cases like FB and Twitter where the platforms have gone global rather than local (as opposed to Line or Wechat) I feel like there should be someone or something else monitoring it as well. Whilst the companies are rooted in several countries, the scale of their platform probably makes it hard to apply a singular justice system to these platforms. So.. in short, let countries manage their own platforms, but keep an eye on them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/2017/10/30/4509587e-bd84-11e7-97d9-bdab5a0ab381_story.html?_sp=50495461-6cc8-4748-a169-6f05e7f0625c.1510139942760&utm_term=.9f6d22992f7f
Another article regarding this topic you might find interesting! The article states that Russian ads on Facebook, Google and Twitter and have reached far more people than expected. It also states that in this way, the Russians try to manipulate the 2016 elections in America.
‘’Because those posts were also liked, shared and commented on by Facebook users, the company estimates that as many as 126 million people may have seen material in their news feeds that originated from Russian operatives, which was crafted to mimic American commentary on politics and social matters such as immigration, African American activism and the rising prominence of Muslims in the United States’’
Another article about the Russians:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/10/17/how-the-russians-pretended-to-be-texans-and-texans-believed-them/?utm_term=.35f7227466e7
In this article, the Russians try to influence the elections in Texas through propaganda posts. So looking at these particular examples, I think it isn’t right for other Countries to have influence on another countries social media.
In one of the first sessions I believe we talked about what the internet would look like under a fully capitalist system, one where we would have to pay for each online article or internet item we would use or access. Well, it seems this has come true, although not for East Asia, but in fact Portugal, where there is no net neutrality. This results in users having to buy different data packages regarding what software/apps they want to use. In some sense these providers are able to influence users in deciding which apps they will use, and who knows what is going on on the other side regarding what these developers must be paying these providers in order to be featured in their data packages.
https://qz.com/1114690/why-is-net-neutrality-important-look-to-portugal-and-spain-to-understand/
Does this mean that parts of the internet that are not included in those packages are not accessible at all, or is there still some way to connect to what we once called the world wide web? In the later case, it might not be so bad. Let the alliance of neoliberal corporatists and progressive nannies cordon off their sanitized version of the internet and sell it in a separate, user friendly bundle. If this does not hurt what is left of the internet as it is supposed to be (think of 5channel and PTT), then nothing of value is lost.
Ha, I just noticed my user icon is my Facebook picture, not sure if I am the only one who can see it, but apparantly I used my email connected to my Facebook account, and that was enough for my picture to appear. I suppose this is a nice example how system easily implement that of others, and how information gets ‘borrowed’ that way, without any consent of the user.
I am concerning about online platforms’ mobilizing effects in term of the dissemination of nationalist sentiments. Firstly, online platform create portals where different thought streams converge, thus probably generating groupthink. Group think is a psychological state where the decision making of members from a specific group is distorted by group pressures which ignore alternatives and undertake irrational actions (t’ Hart 1991, https://goo.gl/YVWoDp). Groupthink occurs when group members have similar backgrounds, and when the group is isolated from outside opinions (http://www.psysr.org/about/pubs_resources/groupthink%20overview.htm). Secondly, the prevalence of digitization in China enables the national propaganda apparatus to engage in debates in online platforms.
I argue that China’s online platforms are prone to be hotbeds for nationalism. Yang and Zheng’s article (https://goo.gl/b5z5zf) demonstrates how the nationalism-affected Chinese angry youth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenqing) reacts on alleged “foreign humiliations. In Chinese netizens’ online attacks on CNN’s “untrue reports” about Tibetan riot in 2008 and on a Korean singer group in 2010, respectively, online platforms (such as Baidu tieba, weibo, tianya BBS, etc.) have become a number of angry Internet users’ bases in which they disseminate nationalistic sentiments and organize online attacks by hacking or spamming (Yang and Zheng 2014). History is like a picture gallery in which there are few original many copies (de Tocqueville 1955), in 2016, part of Baidu Tieba users, who mainly came from the Liyi Forum (李毅吧, a forum powered by Baidu Tieba), managed to attack multiple Facebook pages, including those of Taiwan’s SET Channel, Apple Daily, and Cai In-wen, mainly by spamming of anti-Taiwanese memes, out of their fury against what they perceived Taiwan’s “independence”. Intriguingly, on the same day of the Liyi Forum’s “expedition” on Facebook, the Chinese Youth League’s Weibo account seemly implicitly supported such “patriot” activity by posting a poem (by Mao) praising the Long March.
To briefly conclude, the condition of China’s online platforms could confirm the psychological model of groupthink. This groupthink is illustrated through groups of Chinese internet users’ “patriot” cyber violence. Thanks to the information blockage of the GFW, most of Chinese Internet users seldom have opportunities to be exposed to outside information. Moreover, diversification of online platforms enables (some of) themselves to be the “dreg heap” of nationalists who share the similar backgrounds. Any random event might trigger the outburst of their irrationality in the name of patriotism.
Good points! Would you agree that the Chinese government uses such nationalist sentiments against Taiwan and Japan to distract the public from domestic controversies (especially those within the communist party)? It might be a bit of a conspiracy theory to assume the party intentionally uses the legacy media to stir up such sentiments in case they might be useful, but such things happen elsewhere at least. Just think of how the Argentinian government brings up the Falkland islands whenever its popularity tanks.
It is partly right. Chinese government might mobilize Internet users’ nationalist sentiments. An exemplary case is China’s hiring of “50-cent party” to quell and distract online discussions about “sensitive” topics. King, Pan, and Roberts (2017) estimate that the Chinese authorities might have paid 2,000,000 “50-cent party” to defend for government in political and policy debates by fabricating 448 million social media posts and comments. Though King, Pan, and Roberts argue that the Chinese regimes employs the strategy that to avoid skeptics of the Party and government, and even to get rid of discussing controversial issues, they confirm the massive employment of cheerleading for China, recalling the revolutionary history, and of asserting the regime symbols.
However, Chinese government does not hope that to encounter any abrupt outburst of nationalistic activities. For instance, roughly from my observation of Sino-Japanese relations, Chinese authorities does not want to see any proliferation of radical anti-Japanese or anti-Taiwanese sentiments. In Yang and Zheng’s article (2014) mentioned in my previous post, the authority shut various online accounts down when it detected online attacks against Korea.
We can arguably conclude that China wants to mobilize its public opinions online and carefully maintains nationalist sentiments in the online platforms in a controllable scale. Still, any uncontrollable online activities, even they are self-claimed patriotic, will trigger censorship up.
Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts. 2017. “How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, not Engaged Argument.” American Political Science Review, 111, 3, Pp. 484-501. https://gking.harvard.edu/50c
On the topic of nationalism, this reminds me of another episode of social media driven “destructive” group thinking. In the summer of 2016 many social media users started sharing videos of themselves smashing their iPhones (and even American cars if I am not mistaken) as a sign of protest against the apparently not so well accepted decision by the Court of Arbitration concerning the South China Sea argument. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/09/120_209945.html
Talking about convenience…
I think that in the cases of shopping websites like Amazon and Alibaba, they really have created their own ecosystems. Of course it is terrifying how much power these retail websites have just from the data vacuumed from their users, but it’s even more terrifying a thought that many users simply ‘love’ and ‘choose’ to be vacuumed.
The convenience brought by these websites is exactly what made these giant platforms. As explained in the article posted underneath, what binds consumers to certain services or products is by far ‘convenience’. Because Alibaba and Amazon offer a shockingly wide variety of products which can cater to an equally wide variety of interests, consumers no longer have to physically or digitally hop from shop to shop in hope to find something they may need or like. Along with the buyer protection services as well as the easy return and refund services, consumers feel a lot of ‘hassle’ can be avoided that was once the greatest discouragement for online shopping.
The article also discusses previous loyalty programs or systems that were designed to generate consumer loyalty or even dependency. But what ultimately hooks consumers/users is whether the convenience/price ratio can maintain one’s interest. “Amazon is one of today’s best examples of a company that has managed to generate huge amounts of customer loyalty without utilizing a traditional loyalty program. The e-commerce giant has achieved these results by consistently seeking to make its purchasing experience easier than that of its competitors.”
Of course it would be very naive to think that websites Amazon and Alibaba have not played any dirty games that amount to an attempt of ‘locking-in’, and yet many consumers (myself included) keep finding ourselves returning to these websites voluntarily.
What do you think? Is it possible for commercial websites to play entirely ‘clean’ while maintaining maximum loyalty with its users?
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/the-art-of-customer-loyalty-in-the-age-of-consumer-experience-and-engagemen/503605/
I like the point that you make and the article you based it on. I agree in the fact that convenience is the main thrive for people to keep using digital platforms, even if this convenience comes at the cost of possible privacy loss. I think that innovation is a key term in this discourse, because if companies that run their business digitally don’t innovate, the fact that ‘the e-commerce giant [Amazon] has achieved these results by consistently seeking to make its purchasing experience easier than that of its competitors’ can never be realised. Innovation at a fast pace is only possible with a good functioning, large pool of creative and hardworking employees, I believe.
As to the nasty games companies are playing, I believe one of the most important definitely is the use of ads on platforms like Google and Facebook. As is mentioned before, these huge platforms try to win as much data as possible to eagerly personalize the use of ads in order to maximize the profit generated from ads. If you count this together with the beforementioned large pool of employees, one could conclude that a company needs massive amounts of capital. The generation of money by a company that runs a famous digital platform (only often because of it’s near-to-monopolistic status in the market) happens so increadibly fast, that it’s insanely difficult for new companies to break into the market and take over demands. I think, because of the pace in which this market operates, the capitalist notions of money in relation to power couldn’t be more visible and true.
I am not too sure whether it is possible for commercial websites to play entirely ‘clean’, while at the same time maintaining the same amount of profit or even increasing it.
I agree with D. Op Den Buysch that innovation is key when it comes to competing successfully with other companies. Especially in these days, wherein technology is rapidly changing, companies have to reassess their business model on a regular basis. When this is not the case, it will most likely lead to inertia. The article below illustrates this occurrence well.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/howardhyu/2016/12/03/how-mark-zuckerberg-is-copying-the-chinese-to-put-games-on-facebook-messenger/#552b7fbd7948
I agree with what you’re saying. Data collection for the sake of advertising might seem unethical to many people (especially when it happens on a large scale) but for most websites it is simply their main source of revenue. Without the collection of userdata these websites would not be able to exist. Playing ‘clean’ means not playing at all.
As we have spoken about convenience and the locking in of consumers, a problem we overlook is that these filter bubbles, as introduced by Pariser, do not only violate our privacy, it also creates political and societal polarization (as found by Dominic Spohr in his article “Fake news and ideological polarization: Filter bubbles and selective exposure on social media”: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0266382117722446a)
Especially since this problem surfaced in ‘the West’ recently (fake news, Brexit, Trump etc.), does the opposite, a central filter bubble (the Great Firewall), make sense?
I agree with your point that filter bubbles create political and societal polarisation. However, I wonder if a platform like Facebook is entirely to blame for this phenomenon.
The Facebook algorithm does contribute to the creation of filter bubbles, but people also choose to stay inside of a bubble. People are not at the mercy of the algorithm, but tend to choose news sources that are similar to their own worldview, partly in order to avoid conflict.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/the-filter-bubble-isn-t-just-facebook-s-fault-it-s-yours-a7458631.html
This is different from the Great Firewall. In that case, it is entirely the algorithm that creates the bubble.
I can get in to the point that Facebook offers some opportunities of escaping the filter bubble but there are two problems I have with the bigger picture:
1) Facebook friends (either left of right in political orientation) mostly share videos of cats/food/whatever (information junkfood, as Pariser calls it): stuff not really interesting in regards of the filter bubble. The stuff that is interesting is the news, but I mainly get this from FB pages of news outlets and my suggested pages and so on are all similar to my political orientation.
2) The filter bubble is not only Facebook. Google is the most comprehensive I think and not easy to escape from. In his TedTalk Pariser uses the quote from Eric Schmidt in this regard: “It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored to them”. But the bubble is way more then this: NYT. Netflix, Huffington post are also mentioned by Pariser:
Link to the TEDtalk:https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles#t-221702
I think you are absolutely right that platforms can have an enormous influence on what information you see and that filter bubbles are very difficult to avoid. What I meant is that you could technically still look at other Facebook pages should you want so. But because not many people go out of their way to find information that conflicts their own opinions, the filter bubble is very strong. This works differently with the Great Firewall, that makes it technically impossible to find certain information. However, the result might be the same.
I thought the Ted talk you shared is very interesting! It seems like filter bubbles on Google are almost inescapable. It really shows the power of platforms.
I also wonder to what extent filter bubbles mirror social groups in real life. To what extent do we get to hear different opinions in circles of friends? I think people like to surround themselves with like-minded people.
I agree with you, as far as the personal responsibility of the creation of filter bubbles is concerned. It is true that people often seem to choose to stay inside the bubble, but in my opinion it does not only depend on people’s will. Algorithm could do more than we think, actually prompting contents that are not necessarily simliar to the contents we choose to see.
The article posted underneath shows how the rising of social media is actually changing our news consumption. Most of internet users, as a matter of fact, recognise that social media, search engines, and aggregators offer incidental exposure to news.
The majority of the users agree that they often see news from sources they wouldn’t normally use. As a possible consequence of this, they even agree that they often see news stories that do not interest them. This is the fact that actually strucks me most: the filter bubble seems to be effective only in the case of advertisements or similar, but when it comes to the news, we are more at the mercy of the algorithm than we could think.
On the other hand, it could be said that the exposure to sources that we do not often use could provide us with a broader knowledge of many facts that we usually see only from our point of view, or at least from the point of view that we choose when we read news from our usual sources.
http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2017/social-media-incidental-exposure-2017/
An interesting article also by Schneier portraying the consequences of the continuing shift of the power on the internet towards big corporations and government institutions. Unfortunately as it seems an undeniable truth that we cannot escape. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/the-battle-for-power-on-the-internet/280824/
In my opinion an important point in this article is the problem of security and surveillance.
Currently, as Schneier says, the power battle between grassroots movements and government institutions is dominated by the traditional power. The main feature that the traditional institutions are provided is thus ubiquitous surveillance. Ubiquitous surveillance entails that everything is collected, saved, searched, correlated and analyzed. The fact that nowadays almost everyone owns a computer, means that everyone is continuously producing data, and that data actually equals surveillance. The obvious conclusion is that we have created a world of ubiquitous surveillance, as Schneier himself writes in the article I linked in this comment.
I think that there is an interesting question that arises from this article, and it is introduced by the quotation of Chris Huhn: “information is power, and the necessary corollary is that privacy is freedom.”
How this interplay between power and freedom play out in the information age, then?
https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2013/10/your_life_under_cons.html
Very interesting article! For the case of China, the government already functions as a ‘watchdog’ over the internet. Regarding this topic, I stumbled upon an interesting quote about blocking or removing websites articles showing fake news in China: “We might ask whether it is meaningful at all to talk about ‘truth,’ ‘rumor’ or ‘fake news’ in a system where journalists are told by the state that their primary role is to ‘emphasize positive news.’’.
You can find the article here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/06/world/asia/china-internet-social-media.html
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/1579565/?reload=true
Concerning the information control in the cyberspace, K. Barzilai-Nahon individuates 4 different actors, namely regulators, service providers, communities’ manager, and members of communities. Moreover, it explains the implications of deleting messages in forums.
I hope you all could find it appropriate to our discussion as much as I do.
Very interesting indeed! While reading the article I had to think of the Social Credit System that the Chinese government plans to launch in 2020 (see article below).
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-credit-score-privacy-invasion
I think as well that it is an inescapable reality, governments and big corporations simply do have a tight grip on the Internet. But how could this situation be avoided in theory? Might peer-to-peer Internet be a solution, so that all users have equal power and are thus equally priviliged in its usage (similar to the use of cryptocurrencies)? Perhaps this then looks more like the current structure of the dark web… Not saying that it’s possible but just curious to see what you think
I have to say I, in theory, like the idea of a peer-to-peer internet, in which no power structures exist. This kind of platform would probably be the best platform to spark discussions, and grant a freedom of speech. This freedom is something even UNESCO propagates:
https://en.unesco.org/themes/freedom-expression-internet
I came across belowmentioned article, in which the author writes about the possibility to circumvent a country’s firewall, in order for everybody to have the ability to have the same experience on internet. One downside: this so-called uProxy is created by Google. Could this be the epitome of digital imperialism?
http://mashable.com/2013/10/21/google-uproxy-internet-freedom/#befVu6mg1aqS
Another topic I wanted to address is the fact that in my opinion, the generation that didn’t grow up with mobile phones and digital platforms in their everyday lives, are probably the ones that are the most afraid of the grow of these platforms. Many articles on the web and on Facebook are found about the addiction that youngsters these days have with their smartphone. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-45763/Youngsters-addicted-mobile-phones.html)
If I look around, I can’t disagree with this statement, but I also can’t really think of this as a bad thing. The author of the article I just mentioned, and the scientist who lead the research described, both can’t seem to shake the feeling that contact through digital platforms is fake, superficial and probably detrimental. For me, this is probably one of the powers that modern-day social platforms have, like WhatsApp in Europe, WeChat in China, Line in Japan and Taiwan en KakaoTalk in South-Korea, but I’m not willing to see the actual downside to this development as much as Babyboomers/Generation X-kids seem to do.
http://www.pewinternet.org/2010/08/27/older-adults-and-social-media/
Good point D. Op, skimming through the article you posted made me question myself on the actual age gap among users. Specifically, is your assertion concerning those users who did not grow up in the age of social network only refers to our generation? Did you take into account also older generations, just as like that of our parents or grandparents?
In any case, the link I posted might better illustrate how using social platform among older people (Mary Madden analyzed users older than 50) is gradually becoming the standard.
I am intrigued by the idea that the internet may not be as international as it appears to be and that there may in fact be ‘national’ (not nationalist per se) internets. Scheider discusses this in his chapter when he refers to the PRC attempting to construct its own ‘sovereign’ internet space. I remember we discussed this in class before, probably related to the article by Susan Leung (week 1) in which she talks about multiple internets, among which the PRC’s internet.
The disintegration of the internet into multiple internets apparently was a much-discussed topic a few years ago and even has its own Wikipedia page (called ‘Splinternet’). A popular term to describe this phenomenon is ‘Balkanization’ of the internet (http://ideas.time.com/2013/10/11/the-future-of-the-internet-balkanization-and-borders/ and http://www.economist.com/node/16941635 among many others). The powerful platforms that are being created, be it for capitalist reasons by large companies or for political reasons by political regimes, make it easier for the internet to break down in to multiple internets where it becomes more difficult for people to interact with information or persons from other platforms, among which sovereign national internet spaces, such as the one that the PRC aims to create (see Schneider and Leung’s articles).
The PRC’s internet is of course a strong example here. The Great Firewall and big foreign internet platforms being blocked and replaced by Chinese alternatives, makes it possible for the CCP to ensure that many Chinese internet users barely make contact with foreign information or persons over the internet. However, albeit to a lesser extent, there also exists a Dutch national internet. It is, for example, impossible for me to use the services of the Dutch public service broadcasting website when I am not located in the Netherlands. Furthermore, many countries use their ‘own’ online communication applications, such as Line in Japan, creating digital borders. The internet appears not to be as international as one might expect and platforms play an important role in this.