Trending on Twitter right now: There are no US ambassadors because Donald Trump just fired them all
True or False?
I recently wrote a piece on “fake news and false information” in the context of online security. The feedback was interesting because most commenters did not ( immediately ) equate fake news/false information with their own security in the online space. To put it bluntly, false information significantly increases the risk of decisions leading to compromise. Plain and simple. The terms phishing, vishing and whaling all come to mind as the results of false information.
As an extension of this, online social behaviour also impacts on our ability to interact online safely. The expressions of netizens who deal in, and react to, false information in a fashion that is above what we would call “the norm”, seems to now be “the norm”. This in particular effects all forms of equality. In the context of gender equality specifically, Ashley Judd recently gave stunning TED talk relating her own experiences ( and those of many others ) online.
( note: the following features graphic language )
This abuse online is now the norm.
But past gender equality alone, there are numerous issues that plague online socialisation. Is the hate, vitriol and abuse continuously hurled in online platforms simply a manifestation of online personas or is this the reality that simmers just below our daily lives? Is this who we are now? We’re not face to face with someone so it’s easy to say …
The spectre of Trump is a paradox being forced onto a world which has in recent decades ( mostly ) been fighting for all manner of equality and diversity: gender, politics, race, work, sex, location, creed, religion, caste, etc. Does the election of Trump ( and similarly the election result of Brexit ), and all its retrograde rhetoric, mean that a large portion of the US ( and other parts of the world ) really believe that equality is no longer important?
This may seem like a tangent but the fact is that we’ve seen a reduction in expectations of online privacy and an escalation of online abuse in recent years. Governments all of the world are reducing electronic privacy in the name of increasing citizen security, a fallacy perpetuated ad nauseam with little effective proof. And as online and real-life socialisation blur, so does our security, or threat thereon.
It’s not just direct electronic threats ( malware, phishing, botnets, etc. ) that we have to concern ourselves with, it’s our lives online.