Rhymes from Central Europe
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/rhymes-from-central-europe/
Norman Stone’s sparkling new book, Hungary: A Short History, is a warning against ignoring history. It presents a country that never quite “caught up” with the West, and therefore never “settled down” to a calm post-nationalist existence. The modernising influence of industrialisation has always been subsumed in the problem of borders, religions, languages, and nationalities.
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more on Hungary in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=hungary
PODCAST – Dean Starkman: “We are looking at the Golden Age of Public Corruption”
https://budapestbeacon.com/podcast-dean-starkman-looking-golden-age-public-corruption/
Dean Starkman is a fellow at Center for Media, Data and Society and a visiting lecturer at the School of Public Policy at Central European University, Budapest. He and Ben Novak discuss the challenges facing public interest journalism, the transformation of journalism as whole, and where things are going from here.
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more on Hungary in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=hungary
more on populism in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=populism
Plokhy, S. (2011). The “New Eastern Europe”: What to Do with the Histories of Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova? East European Politics and Societies, 25(4), 763-769. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0888325411398914
my note: this 2011 article, suddenly becomes relevant, considering the current situation in Ukraine. My opinion as a historian is that further “decentralization” of the 20th century definition of “Eastern Europe,” as contested as it is (e.g., are Poland, the Czech R, Slovakia, and Hungary “Central Europe” or “Eastern Europe?” Are the Balkans In EE?), will further exacerbate the debate around the definition.
on the other hand, the author may have a point, by claiming Central European and Balkan countries are now generally referred as the “European Union,” but that also is not as simple, considering the exclusion of some former Yugoslav/Balkan countries.
other complexities (similarly to the downfall of Yugoslavia): religion[s], ethnicity, geopolitical issues.
“Thus, the NEE is not just a figment of current geopolitical imagination. There are geographic, cultural, ethnic, and historical factors that set it apart from its neighbors. But can history as a discipline and we as its practitioners benefit from this new conceptualization of the old Eastern Europe?”
Internet propaganda is becoming an industrialized commodity, warns Phil Howard, the director of the Oxford Internet…
Posted by SPIEGEL International on Friday, January 15, 2021
Posted by SPIEGEL International on Friday, January 15, 2021
Can We Develop Herd Immunity to Internet Propaganda?
Internet propaganda is becoming an industrialized commodity, warns Phil Howard, the director of the Oxford Internet Institute and author of many books on disinformation. In an interview, he calls for greater transparency and regulation of the industry.
Platforms like Parler, TheDonald, Breitbart and Anon are like petri dishes for testing out ideas, to see what sticks. If extremist influencers see that something gets traction, they ramp it up. In the language of disease, you would say these platforms act as a vector, like a germ that carries a disease into other, more public forums.
at some point a major influencer takes a new meme from one of these extremist forums and puts it out before a wider audience. It works like a vector-borne disease like malaria, where the mosquitoes do the transmission. So, maybe a Hollywood actor or an influencer who knows nothing about politics will take this idea and post it on the bigger, better known platform. From there, these memes escalate as they move from Parler to maybe Reddit and from there to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. We call this “cascades of misinformation.“
Sometimes the cascades of misinformation bounce from country to country between the U.S., Canada and the UK for example. So, it echoes back and forth.
Within Europe, two reservoirs for disinformation stick out: Poland and Hungary.
Our 2020 report shows that cyber troop activity continues to increase around the world. This year, we found evidence of 81 countries using social media to spread computational propaganda and disinformation about politics. This has increased from last years’ report, where we identified 70 countries with cyber troop activity.
identified 63 new instances of private firms working with governments or political parties to spread disinformation about elections or other important political issues. We identified 21 such cases in 2017-2018, yet only 15 in the period between 2009 and 2016.
Why would well-funded Russian agencies buy disinformation services from a newcomer like Nigeria?
(1) Russian actors have found a lab in Nigeria that can provide services at competitive prices. (2) But countries like China and Russia seem to be developing an interest in political influence in many African countries, so it is possible that there is a service industry for disinformation in Nigeria for that part of the world.
Each social media company should provide some kind of accounting statement about how it deals with misuse, with reporting hate speech, with fact checking and jury systems and so on. This system of transparency and accountability works for the stock markets, why shouldn’t it work in the social media realm?
We clearly need a digital civics curriculum. The 12 to 16 year olds are developing their media attitudes now, they will be voting soon. There is very good media education in Canada or the Netherlands for example, and that is an excellent long-term strategy.
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more on fake news in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=fake+news
DRAKULIĆ, S. (2017, October 19). Tackling the virus of nationalism. Retrieved October 30, 2017, from
http://www.eurozine.com/tackling-the-virus-of-nationalism/
More from Drakulic:
DRAKULIC, S. (2009). The Generation That Failed. Nation, 289(16), 16-17.
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Slavenka describec what the East Germans called Die Quall der Wahl
When communism fell, Poland had Solidarity and Lech Walesa, Czechoslovakia had Václav Havel, Hungary had Fidesz, Bulgaria had Zhelyu Zhelev—and Yugoslavia had no democratic opposition at all. My note: Little she knew about the Bulgarian Opposition
A few years before the breakup of Yugoslavia, the political landscape was already filled with communists-turnednationalists (like Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo Tudjman). Nationalism became the only political “alter native” in Yugoslavia, leading us directly to wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.
Yes, my generation lived too well, and obviously we mistook freedom and democracy for the freedom of shopping in the West. And as in a medieval morality play, we had to pay for that in the three wars to follow: our children fought those wars; they were killed, and their limbs were severed.
Drakulic, S. (2011). Serbia’s War Criminal. Nation, 292(25), 8. http://login.libproxy.stcloudstate.edu/login?qurl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ebscohost.com%2flogin.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26db%3daph%26AN%3d61138708%26site%3dehost-live%26scope%3dsite
Slavenka, D. (2008). Seduced by power and vanity. Toronto Star (Canada).
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more on history in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=history