A century ago, during the tumultuous Weimar Republic, Max Weber delivered a lecture titled “Politics as a Vocation”. Democracy in modern nations, he argued, could take one of two forms: rule by bureaucrats acting from self-interest and “living from” politics; or a “leadership democracy” in which a charismatic leader commands a party machine that can mobilise voters. Weber would not have been surprised by the Putins, Orbans and Erdogans of today. His teachings remain eerily relevant
Accents: The cost of sounding black
Two studies by professors with a command of multiple accents found that estate agents in America were less likely to offer them properties in white or Hispanic neighbourhoods when they used their black voice. The implications are profound. A house in a good area is a ticket to a good school, which allows your children to mix with people who have the “right” accent, perpetuating the circle. The reverse is true too. Such prejudice is wrong and also irrational
WhatsApp suggests a cure for virality
Other tech firms should watch and learn
Services such as Facebook and Twitter are built to maximise “virality”, making it irresistible to share, like and retweet things. They are getting better at it: fully half of the 40 most-retweeted tweets date from January last year.
.. Virality can cost lives. At least two dozen innocent people have been lynched in India this year after bogus rumours warning of child abductors went viral on WhatsApp, a messaging service owned by Facebook. WhatsApp has also been used by political operatives in India, its largest market, to stoke religious and nationalist fury.
.. Starting this month, however, users of WhatsApp will find it harder to spread content. They will no longer be able to forward messages to more than 20 others in one go, down from more than 100. In India the upper limit is just five and WhatsApp has removed the “quick forward” button from audio, video and images, adding an extra step to the process of sending content.
.. The goal is not to prevent people from sharing information—only to get users to think about what they are passing on. It is an idea other platforms should consider copying.
.. Sceptics point out that WhatsApp can afford to hinder the spread of information on its platform because it does not rely on the sale of advertisements to make money.
Slowing down sharing would be more damaging to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, which make money by keeping users on their sites and showing them ads. Their shareholders would surely balk at anything that lessens engagement.
.. Facebook’s shares fell by 23% in after-hours trading this week, partly because Mark Zuckerberg, its boss, said that its priority would be to get users to interact more with each other, not to promote viral content. Yet the short-term pain caused by a decline in virality may be in the long-term interests of the social networks. Fake news and concerns about digital addiction, among other things, have already damaged the reputations of tech platforms. Moves to slow sharing could help see off draconian action by regulators and lawmakers.
.. Instagram, a photo-sharing social network also owned by Facebook, shows that you can be successful without resorting to virality. It offers no sharing options and does not allow links but boasts more than a billion monthly users. It has remained relatively free of political content and misinformation.
.. Move slow, don’t fake things
The need to curb virality is becoming ever more urgent. About half the world uses the internet today. The next 3.8bn users to go online will be poorer and less familiar with media. The examples of hoaxes, misinformation and violence in India suggest that the capacity to manipulate people online is even greater when they first gain access to digital communications.
Small changes can have big effects: social networks have become expert at making their services compulsive by tweaking shades of blue and the size of buttons. They have the knowledge and the tools to maximise the sharing of information. That gives them the power to limit its virality, too.
Scripture offers much material for arguments about dividing families
An outburst from Jeff Sessions about a new border policy has people scouring the Bible
People who really want to raise the stakes in this scriptural to-and-fro might consider turning to a verse in Matthew’s Gospel which warns of the dire consequences that may befall anybody who does spiritual harm to children.
If anyone causes one of these little ones…to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
The onus would then be on anyone who advocates confining hundreds of children in sweltering, makeshift facilities, separate from their parents, to explain how this could be for their spiritual benefit.