Edição #21
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Latitude 52.5200 - Berlin
Se do resultado das eleições alemãs surgiu, como história maior, o longo período de negociações que se percorrerá para formar Governo, há outras, também relevantes, que ficaram relegadas para segundo plano. Uma delas, se a quisermos definir no espaço e no tempo, aconteceu no passado – antes das eleições – e em parte incerta, isto é, online e um pouco por todo o território alemão.
Ahead of German election, Telegram plays radicalizing role:
Telegram, which has become a favorite for privacy-savvy locals, is fast becoming a hotbed for far-right voters, people peddling conspiracy theorists and extremists promoting hate speech — and experts are concerned that this vocal minority may use the messenger to organize protests and spread misinformation about the upcoming vote in Europe's largest economy.
Naturalmente, o problema não é o Telegram per se, nem o facto de garantir mais privacidade aos seus utilizadores – muito pelo contrário. A questão é quando a tecnologia se junta com a capacidade de propagação de discursos de ódio:
While Telegram does not have the same user numbers as Facebook's WhatsApp, it has garnered a loyal following who have turned the app into a mouthpiece for those angry at how Berlin has handled the response to the COVID-19 global health crisis. Many turned to the privacy-oriented messenger after more mainstream platforms removed scores of accounts promoting hateful material or debunked falsehoods.
Contudo, não creio que as pessoas tenham de escolher entre privacidade e liberdade de expressão. Acontece que espalhar mensagens de ódio ou veicular mentiras não é exercer essa liberdade. Por outro lado, já acho que propagar teorias da conspiração entre na umbrela da liberdade de expressão –a parte da ‘teoria’ é importante – e aqui entra a liberdade de expressão do outro: dizer que essa teoria não faz sentido.
De qualquer modo, o que poderá corrigir estas práticas são 1) trabalho interno, da app, na remoção de conteúdos comprovados inadmissíveis (falsos, ódio, violência); 2) promoção, por parte do Estado, de estratégias de literacia online e reforço da educação da população, para que as pessoas não acreditem em tudo o que é veiculado.
Contudo, e ainda que precedidas de ataques de desinformação catalisada por “far-right influencers, anti-vax campaigners and QAnon conspiracy theorists”, as eleições correram dentro da normalidade e há até boas notícias:
Representation matters: Tessa Ganserer and Nyke Slawik both won seats in the election, making history as the first two openly transgender people to join the German Parliament. Both belong to the Greens Party.
Já agora, e tendo sido o partido social democrata, Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands - SPD (esquerda-centro alemã), a vencer as eleições, poderá interessar relembrar a origem/evolução da social-democracia.
A social-democracia
The Social Democrats’ campaign has been marked by clear messaging on progressive issues like increasing the minimum wage and creating more affordable housing. “Social democracy is back,” said Andrea Römmele, dean of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.
A social-democracia pode ser definida de várias maneiras e cada pessoa, de cada espectro político, poderá ter o seu juízo, tal é a polissemia/evolução do conceito ao longo do tempo. Certo é que, quanto à sua origem, a coisa vai invariavelmente bater nos mesmos conceitos:
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within the socialist tradition. As an economic ideology and policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal-democratic polity and a capitalist-oriented mixed economy.
Resumidamente
1: a political movement advocating a gradual and peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism by democratic means
2: a democratic welfare state that incorporates both capitalist and socialist practices
O contexto e a origem alemã:
The social democratic movement grew out of the efforts of August Bebel, who with Wilhelm Liebknecht cofounded the Social Democratic Workers’ Party in 1869 and then effected the merger of their party with the General German Workers’ Union in 1875 to form what came to be called the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
Já como evolução, importa sublinhar:
After World War II, social democratic parties came to power in several nations of western Europe—e.g., West Germany, Sweden, and Great Britain (in the Labour Party)—and laid the foundations for modern European social welfare programs. With its ascendancy, social democracy changed gradually, most notably in West Germany. These changes generally reflected a moderation of the 19th-century socialist doctrine of wholesale nationalization of business and industry.
Podemos, posteriormente, ver quão negativa para a conquista da igualdade e justiça social e económica foi a evolução da social-democracia, ou então podemos só olhar para o PSD (social democracia só mesmo no nome).
Latitude 55.7558 - Moscovo
Mais uma história onde a tecnologia é mal (ou bem, depende do objectivo) usada: In Russia, Apple and Google Staff Get Muscled by the State:
EARLIER THIS MONTH, when the Kremlin told multiple Big Tech companies to suppress political opposition amid nationwide elections in Russia, their answer was unequivocal: no. Yet just two weeks later, Apple and Google deleted from their app stores the Smart Voting app, opposition leader Alexey Navalny and his party’s primary tool for consolidating votes against Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Then Telegram and Google-owned YouTube also restricted access to the recommendations for opposition candidates that Navalny was sharing on these platforms. Putin of course was ecstatic.
Um parágrafo que diz tudo… impressiona (?) como as grandes empresas cedem à pressão dos estados ditatoriais.
Numa era em que se fala tanto de personalização, privacidade e descentralização, os valores democráticos e liberais continuam relegados para segundo plano, em prol do lucro de aglomerados tecnológicos sedentos de (mais) capital; e são todas iguais: Facebook, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple…
Já agora, nem o sistema de voto eletrónico, que poderia complicar a coisa para o lado de Putin, escapou à censura:
Russia’s Communist Party will not recognize electronic voting results which reversed its candidates’ strong leads in the country’s parliamentary elections held over the weekend, a party official said Monday.
Latitude 11.5563 - Phnom Penh
Para a trilogia das histórias onde a tecnologia foi usada de forma subversiva, o prémio da originalidade tem de ser entregue a Hun Sen, com Cambodia’s prime minister is Zoombombing opposition meetings:
“I have been listening, and have entered to listen many times already,” the 69-year-old authoritarian leader said, on a video recording of the interaction that circulated widely on Facebook. For about 12 minutes, the prime minister lectured a senior member of the opposition, Long Ry. He wagged his finger as he demanded his rivals, who he had driven into exile, stop insulting him if they ever expected to be allowed to return home.
Como assim??
A situação poderá ter sido tão inusitada que o porta-voz do governo achou que, se usasse o argumento da manipulação das imagens, a coisa passava:
The events that followed were equally disorienting. A longtime spokesman for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, Senator Sok Eysan, initially attempted to explain that the clip was manipulated from old video footage.
Mas a teoria, que eventualmente ninguém compraria, caiu por terra quando o primeiro-ministro combojano voltou a falar: “After Hun Sen publicly referred to the incident on Facebook—his favored platform—Eysan reversed course.”
“This entry was just to give a warning message to the rebel group to be aware that Hun Sen’s people are everywhere,” Hun Sen wrote on Facebook. “Please be careful, and don’t do any activities against the national interest.”
Uma falsa intenção de saída
Em junho, a revista digital The Diplomat escrevia assim:
It is an open secret that after 36 years in power, making him one of the world’s longest-serving leaders, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen is thinking about his political exit – something that must be on his mind now as he sits alone during his second forced quarantine of the year.
With biting irony, he said last November that he wants to dedicate his post-political career to becoming a lawyer, after spending his political career dismantling Cambodia’s rule of law.
Originalidade e astúcia, traz-nos o primeiro-ministro do Camboja em grandes quantidades - e de certeza que deve estar mesmo quase a retirar-se da política…
Outras histórias
Ai ai ai que os talibãs estão diferentes, parte 7. Taliban bars women from Kabul University:
Mohammed Ashraf Ghairat, the Taliban’s new chancellor for Kabul University, announced yesterday that women would be barred from the institution as instructors or students. “As long as a real Islamic environment is not provided for all, women will not be allowed to come to universities or work,” he said in a tweet. “Islam first.”
Do Politico, sem amor: What If 2020 Was Just a Rehearsal?
“I feel like a climate scientist warning about the Earth going up another degree and a half,” Hasen told POLITICO Magazine in an interview this week. “The rhetoric is so overheated that I think it provides the basis for millions of people to accept an actual stolen election as payback for the falsely claimed earlier ‘stolen’ election. People are going to be more willing to cheat if they think they’ve been cheated out of their just desserts.”
Ainda no mesmo tema, um importante excerto da newsletter Debatable:
“We often think that what we should be waiting for is fascists and communists marching in the streets, but nowadays, the ways democracies often die is through legal things at the ballot box — so things that can be both legal and antidemocratic at the same time,” said Daniel Ziblatt, a Harvard political scientist. “Politicians use the letter of the law to subvert the spirit of the law.”
O maior assalto da história.When France extorted Haiti – the greatest heist in history:
I’m a specialist on colonialism and slavery, and what France did to the Haitian people after the Haitian Revolution is a particularly notorious examples of colonial theft. France instituted slavery on the island in the 17th century, but, in the late 18th century, the enslaved population rebelled and eventually declared independence. Yet, somehow, in the 19th century, the thinking went that the former enslavers of the Haitian people needed to be compensated, rather than the other way around.
E, agora, isto: Squid Game: the hellish horrorshow taking the whole world by storm.
E, ainda, uma história de desapontamento global: Finding Memories, and Mom’s Sewing Stuff, in a Reused Cookie Tin
Para fechar
Eis um dos novos 37 emoji - melting face aka olha o aquecimento global:
Até para a semana!