English Rhetorical Precis and Annotated articles

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Annotate these 2 articles and also write a Rhetorical Precis for each. There is an example down below on how you should annotate.


- Main Claim (in yellow on the attached) - Subclaims (in green on the attached)

- Key Evidence (in gray on the attached) - Rhetorical Strategies

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Social networks are creating a global crisis of democracy SUBSCRIBE REGISTER OPINION Social networks are creating a global crisis of democracy Silicon Valley once promised its digital revolution would topple dictators – but now it's disrupting the free world instead. Niall Ferguson asks: What have we done? SUPPORT QUALITY JOURNALISM JUST 99¢ PER WEEK FOR THE FIRST FOUR WEEKS START TODAY In 2016, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and other Silicon Valley titans saw their creations help Donald Trump win the White House. Now those companies are frantically hitting the escape key – and the world’s democracies are waking up to the threats of social networks, Niall Ferguson argues. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/THE GLOBE AND MAIL NIALL FERGUSON CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL PUBLISHED JANUARY 19, 2018 UPDATED JANUARY 20, 2018 Niall Ferguson’s new book, The https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/ 4/1/18, 10E02 PM Page 1 of 15 "E Square and the Tower: sc!" It's the key on the top left of the keyboard Networks and Power from the that you hit frantically when your laptop Freemasons to Facebook, is published this month by crashes. Confronted by the ghastly reality that some Penguin Press. of their proudest creations – Google, Facebook and Twitter – helped propel Donald Trump into the White House, the tech titans of Silicon Valley are hitting esc like panic-stricken sophomores whose term papers have frozen before they clicked on the "save" icon. "Content moderators" are being hired by the thousand. Fake accounts are being closed. The News Feed is being "fixed." Esc, esc, esc. But that page is still frozen. And it will take more than esc to fix this. More like ctrl+alt+del. It wasn't supposed to be this way. For a time, it seemed as if the internet was on democracy's side, helping the crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square or Kiev's Maidan topple terrible tyrants. STORY CONTINUES BELOW ADVERTISEMENT "Current network technology … truly favours the citizens," wrote Google's Jared Cohen and Eric Schmidt in their 2013 book The New Digital Age. "Never before have so many people been connected through an instantly responsive network," with truly "game-changing" implications for politics everywhere. Mr. Cohen and Mr. Schmidt's 2010 article "The Digital Disruption" presciently argued that authoritarian governments would "be caught off-guard when large numbers of their citizens, armed with virtually nothing but cellphones, take part in mini-rebellions that challenge their authority." The "real action" in what they called "the interconnected estate" could be found in "cramped offices in Cairo" as well as "on the streets of Tehran. From these locations and others, activists and technology geeks are rallying political 'flash mobs' that shake repressive governments, building new tools to skirt firewalls and censors, reporting and tweeting the new online journalism, and writing a bill of human rights for the internet age." Even more euphoric was Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and chief executive of Facebook. In 2015, he called the internet "a force for peace in the world." Connecting people on Facebook was building a "common global community" with a "shared understanding" of the problems confronting humanity. Oh, happy days. Oh, glad, confident morning. Sadly, over the past two years, it has gradually become apparent that internet may pose a bigger threat to democracies than to dictators. For one thing, the growth of network platforms with unprecedented data-gathering https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/ 4/1/18, 10E02 PM Page 2 of 15 capabilities has created new opportunities for authoritarian regimes, not least in China and Russia, to control their own populations more effectively. For another, the networks themselves offer ways in which bad actors – and not only the Russian government – can undermine democracy by A Facebook logo looms behind Mark Zuckerberg disseminating fake news and extreme at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, views. "These social platforms are all Calif. invented by very liberal people on the MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS west and east coasts," said Brad Parscale, Mr. Trump's digital-media director, in an interview last year. "And we figure out how to use it to push conservative values. I don't think they thought that would ever happen." Too right. STORY CONTINUES BELOW ADVERTISEMENT Having initially dismissed as "a pretty crazy idea" the notion that fake news on Facebook had helped Mr. Trump to victory, Mr. Zuckerberg last year came clean: Russians using false identities had paid for 3,000 Facebook advertisements that sent implicitly pro-Trump messages to Americans before and after the election. By some estimates, between 146 and 150 million users – more people than voted – had seen posts from accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency, a pro-Kremlin organization, including around 16 million users of Instagram, which Facebook owns. One analysis of six Russia-linked Facebook pages found their posts had been shared 340 million times. And those were just six of 470 pages that Facebook had identified as Russian. Trolls with false identities had also used Facebook Events (the company's event-management tool) to promote political protests in the United States, including an Aug. 27, 2016, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rally in a rural Idaho town known to welcome refugees. In May, 2016, two Russian-linked Facebook groups had organized simultaneous opposing protests in front of the Islamic Da'wah Center of Houston. "Heart of Texas," a bogus group claiming to favour Texas secession, had announced a noon rally on May 21 to "Stop Islamification of Texas." Meanwhile, a separate Russiansponsored group, "United Muslims of America," had advertised a "Save Islamic Knowledge" rally for exactly the same place and time. This wasn't the kind of global community Mr. Zuckerberg had envisaged. This is not just an American story. To an extent that is not well enough appreciated, it is a global crisis of democracy. Similar efforts were made, albeit on a smaller scale, to influence the outcome of the British referendum on European https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/ 4/1/18, 10E02 PM Page 3 of 15 Union membership – mainly via fake Twitter accounts – as well as last year's elections in the Netherlands, France and Germany. And the fact that the Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election has since become the focal point of multiple inquiries in Washington – which may even pose a threat to the legitimacy and longevity of Mr. Trump's presidency – does not mean that similar things are not going on in other countries even as you read this article. Canadians have good reason to worry about how social media could impact the 2019 federal election. When Facebook and Twitter told MPs last year that they could increase public engagement in the debates between party leaders, some people wondered how much of this would be provided by Russian bots. Yet the most alarming revelation of the past year is not the importance of Russian fake news, but its After the 2016 election, Facebook unearthed unimportance. Former president Barack examples of a Russian misinformation campaign Obama implicitly acknowledged that in whose posts were shared millions of times on the social network. Here are two examples his recent Netflix interview with David presented as evidence to Congress last year. Letterman. Having swept into the White U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PERMANENT SELECT House in 2008 as the first candidate of COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE the social media age, Obama acknowledged that he had "missed … the degree to which people who are in power, special interests, foreign governments, et cetera, can in fact manipulate [social media] and propagandize." However, the former law professor made no attempt to lay all the blame on outside forces. "What the Russians exploited," he said, "was already here … [The fact that] we are operating in completely different information universes. If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you listen to NPR. That's what's happening with these Facebook pages, where more and more people are getting their news from. At a certain point, you just live in a bubble. And that's part of why our politics is so polarized right now." What happened in 2016 was much more than just a Kremlin "black op" that exceeded expectations. It was a direct result of the profound change in the public sphere brought about by the advent and spectacular growth of the online network platforms. In many ways, the obsessive focus of the American political class on the Russian sub-plot is a distraction from the alarming reality that – as the European competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager argued earlier this month – the big https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/ 4/1/18, 10E02 PM Page 4 of 15 tech companies, and the way their services are used by ordinary people, pose a much bigger threat to democracy. It is the threat from within we really need to worry about – not the threat from Putin. Top apps by share of all smartphone touches 16% 15 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Facebook Messages Home screen Chrome Textra THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: DSCOUT DATA SHARE A POLARIZATION PROBLEM W e are nearly all addicts. The website eMarketer estimates that adult Facebook users in the United States spent roughly 41 minutes a day on the platform in 2017. And that's just our favourite app. The average smartphone user clicks, taps and swipes that insidious little device an amazing 2,617 times a day. And we don't just passively read. We engage. We like. We retweet. We reply. We comment. Now, it must be admitted that most of what we write is inane. In Canada, the five most-commonly used words in Facebook status updates are: "day," "hangover," "loud," "ticket" and "word." ("Hangover" is ranked 7th in Britain and 8th in the United States – make of that what you will.) But a fair amount of what we engage with online is news. Two-thirds of U.S. adults are on Facebook. Nearly half – 45 per cent – get news from Mr. Zuckerberg's platform. More than one in 10 Americans get news from YouTube, while roughly the same proportion (11 per cent) get news from Twitter. In Canada, 51 per cent of people get their news from digital sources first. Use and news consumption among U.S. adults, by source Use site Get news on site https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/ 4/1/18, 10E02 PM Page 5 of 15 Facebook 66% 4 1 45 58 YouTube 18 26 Instagram 7 15 Twitter 11 21 LinkedIn 5 18 Snapchat 5 11 WhatApp 2 6 Reddit Tumblr 4 4 1 THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:PEW RESEARCH CENTER STUDY, 2017 DATA SHARE As a recent Harvard paper co-authored by Gary King demonstrates, the network platforms essentially amplify news from established news outlets. As they do so, however, a strange thing happens. Whether one looks at blogs or at Twitter, social media tend to promote polarization. Liberal bloggers link to liberal bloggers, rarely to conservative ones. Liberal Twitter users re-tweet one another, seldom their conservative counterparts. And tweets on political topics – gun control, same-sex marriage, climate change – are 20 per cent more likely to be retweeted for every moral or emotional word they employ. Note also that political Twitter is not for everyone. As Daniel Hopkins, Ye Liu, Daniel Preotiuc-Pietro and Lyle Ungar have shown, by analyzing nearly five million tweets generated by four thousand Twitter accounts in August, 2016, it is "very conservative" and "very liberal" users who are most likely to tweet political words. Word use on Twitter by political figures and users by political type % of total words used Political words Political names Conservative political figures Very conservative users Conservatives Mod. conservatives Moderates Mod. liberals Liberals Very liberal Media/pundit names 3.48 2.95 0.79 0.18 1.03 0.72 0.51 0.45 0.58 0.66 0.98 Liberal political figures 3.92 THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:BEYOND BINARY LABELS: POLITICAL IDEOLOGY PREDICTION OF TWITTER USERS https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/ 4/1/18, 10E02 PM Page 6 of 15 DATA SHARE We see a similar phenomenon when we analyze the Facebook followers of U.S. legislators. In both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the pattern is clear: The more ideologically out there you are – whether to the left or the right – the more followers you are likely to have. In this context, it becomes apparent that Russian fake news represented a drop in an ocean of inflammatory political commentary that was overwhelmingly indigenous. Between March, 2015, and November, 2016, 128 million Americans created nearly 10 billion Facebook posts, shares, likes and comments about the election. Remember how many Russian ads there were? That's right: a paltry 3,000. According to new research by Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth College, Andrew Guess of Princeton University and Jason Reifler of the University of Exeter, roughly one in four Americans saw at least one false story in the run-up to the presidential election. But fake stories were just 1 per cent of the news Hillary Clinton supporters read, and 6 per cent of the news Trump supporters read. Remember, too, that not all the Russian-sourced news was fake. The tens of thousands of e-mails hacked from the accounts of John Podesta and other Democrats were as real as they were confidential. But it wasn't the Russians who were driving the traffic on the Breitbart website to record highs. It wasn't the Russians who explained to the Trump campaign how they could use targeted Facebook advertising to compensate – with precision – for what they lacked in dollars. It was Silicon Valley: its big data, its algorithms, its employees. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/ 4/1/18, 10E02 PM Page 7 of 15 PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/THE GLOBE AND MAIL A MATTER OF PRIORITIES D on't take it from me. Take it from former Facebook staff who have spoken out in the past year. Antonio Garcia Martinez, the former Facebook engineer and author of the book Chaos Monkeys, put it starkly: "I think there's a real question if democracy can survive Facebook and all the other Facebook-like platforms," he said in an interview. "Before platforms like Facebook, the argument used to be that you had a right to your own opinion. Now, it's more like the right to your own reality." Facebook's propaganda was all about building a global community. But in practice, the company was laser-focused on the bottom line – and highly resistant to outside criticism. Sandy Parakilas, who worked as an operations manager to fix privacy problems on Facebook's developer platform in advance of its 2012 initial public offering, has said that the company "prioritized data collection from its users over protecting them from abuse." "When I was at Facebook," he said last year, "the typical reaction I recall looked like this: Try to put any negative press coverage to bed as quickly as possible, with no sincere efforts to put safeguards in place or to identify and stop abusive developers." The policy was to "react only when the press or regulators make something an issue, and avoid any changes that would hurt the business of collecting and selling data." Perhaps the most scathing assessment came from former vice-president for user growth, Chamath Palihapitiya. "I think," he told an audience of students at Stanford's Graduate School of Business in December, "we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. … The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no co-operation: misinformation, mistrust. And it's not an American problem – this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem." Fmr. Facebook Exec: Social Media Ripping Apart Society, “You… Chamath Palihapitiya speaks out about social media’s harmful effects on society 5:20 https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/ 4/1/18, 10E02 PM Page 8 of 15 Mr. Palihapitiya said he felt "tremendous guilt" about his own part in this because he believed he and his former colleagues "kind of knew something bad would happen." He is not alone in feeling guilty. Facebook's first president, Sean Parker, has talked in similar terms. Another early employee told Vanity Fair, "Most of the early employees I know are totally overwhelmed by what this thing has become. They look at the role Facebook now plays in society … and they have this sort of 'Oh my God, what have I done' moment." True, in recent months Facebook has scrambled to respond to all this recrimination. On Sept. 21, for example, Mr. Zuckerberg pledged to work "pro-actively to strengthen the democratic process." Facebook would require that all political ads disclose which page paid for them and ensure that each ad is accessible to everyone. Later last year, he announced plans to clamp down on "bad content and bad actors" by doubling the number of employees and contractors who handle safety and security issues to 20,000 by the end of 2018. And just last week, he announced an overhaul of the News Feed to prioritize "meaningful interaction" between users over the kind of media-generated content that advertisers like. But if you think this kind of self-regulation is going to fix democracy's social-media problem, then I have a bridge to sell you. For one thing, it would take at least an order of magnitude more people to achieve meaningful monitoring of the vast amount of content that Facebook's two billion-plus users produce and share every day. For another, none of this alters the company's fundamental business model, which is to sell advertisers the precision targeting that Facebook's user data allows. Political advertising may henceforth be identified as such, in the way that it is on television. But just how much less effective will that make it? Google says it will curate its "News" search results more carefully, to rank established newspaper sites above bulletin boards such as 4chan or Reddit, which are favourite channels for alt-right content. Anyone who thinks that will stop people reading fake news hasn't found the "scroll down" button on their keyboard. The most followed world leaders on Twitter, 2017 @pontifex 33.7 7.4 30.1 @realDonaldTrump 30 @NarendraModi 18 @PMOIndia 17.8 @POTUS 14.4 @WhiteHouse 10.2 @RT_Erdogan @SushmaSwaraj @HHShkMohd @jokowi 8 7.9 7.4 THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: TWIPLOMACY 2017 DATA SHARE A NEW KIND OF POLITICS T he reality is, no matter how Facebook, Google and Twitter tweak their algorithms, a new kind of politics has been born. It can no more be unborn https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/ 4/1/18, 10E02 PM Page 9 of 15 than the new kind of politics born when television revealed how much betterlooking John F. Kennedy was than sweaty Richard Nixon, with his five o'clock shadow. Or how easily Lyndon Johnson could make Barry Goldwater seem like a man who wanted to drop atomic bombs on little children. There are now two kinds of politicians in this world: the kind that know how to use social media as a campaign tool and the ones who lose elections. All over the world, the distinction is clear. The populists of the right and of the left understand the power of social media. The moderates who occupy the centre ground, with few exceptions – Justin "Selfie" Trudeau is one of them – are still playing by 1990s rules. Among the few indicators that Mr. Trump had a good chance of beating Ms. Clinton were his enormous leads on Facebook and Twitter throughout the 2016 campaign. Applying similar metrics around the world yields startling results. Take Britain, for example. The Leave campaign's victory in the 2016 referendum on Britain's membership in the European Union owed a great deal to its pioneering use of Facebook advertising. Yet the principal political beneficiary of Brexit – the woman who became prime minister shortly after the referendum, Theresa May – is a socialmedia loser, with little more than half a million Facebook followers and even less on Twitter. By comparison, the Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn – a grizzled populist of the left in the style of Bernie Sanders – has 1.3 million followers on Facebook followers and 1.7 million on Twitter (numbers as of Jan. 18). No other British politician comes close. Boris Johnson is often mentioned in the same breath as Mr. Trump, but all the two men really have in common is big hair. Mr. Corbyn has four times more Twitter followers than "BoJo." Follower counts of Britain's political figures In millions Twitter Facebook Theresa May Boris Johnson 0.5 1.3 1.7 0.5 0.4 0.5 Jeremy Corbyn 1.3 1.7 THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: FACEBOOK, SOCIALBLADE (AS OF JAN. 18, 2018) DATA SHARE Britain has no election scheduled for 2018 – although it is possible Ms. May's woefully weak government could fall as the economic costs of Brexit make themselves felt and the harsh realities of the EU's divorce terms become apparent. Elsewhere, however, electorates are preparing to vote in general elections, notably in Brazil, Colombia, Italy and Mexico. These contests will give us a chance to see how far the new politics has spread. Start with Brazil, a country whose political elite has been battered by corruption scandals that led to the impeachment of the Workers' Party President Dilma Rouseff and probably disqualify her predecessor, Luiz Lula da Silva, from running this year. But who cares? Lula has three million Facebook followers and just 189,000 Twitter followers. Far ahead of him on social media is Luciano Huck, the entrepreneur and https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/ 4/1/18, 10E02 PM Page 10 of 15 television star, host of the hugely popular Saturday night TV show Caldeirao do Huck. With 17 million Facebook followers and nearly 13 million on Twitter, Mr. Huck is in a league of his own in Brazilian politics. A Huck candidacy would be the Brazilian equivalent of Oprah Winfrey (FB 11.6m, TW 41.4m) running for president in 2020. He is not a populist; he's just popular. In second place, however, comes Jair Bolsonaro (FB 5m, TW 0.8m), the former army parachutist whose political positions make Mr. Trump seem like a lily-livered liberal. Mr. Bolsonaro is an unabashed defender of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985. Name any politically incorrect position; Mr. Bolsonaro has taken it. "I would never rape you," he once told a female politician, "because you do not deserve it." Follower counts of Brazil political figures In millions Twitter Facebook Luiz Lula da Silva 0.2 0.8 5.0 3 6 Dilma Rousseff 3 41.4 Luciano Huck Jair Bolsonaro 11.6 0.8 5 THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:FACEBOOK, SOCIALBLADE (AS OF JAN. 18, 2018) DATA SHARE Italian politics was in many ways the experimental laboratory for the kind of candidate who combines wealth and celebrity with political incorrectness. Silvio Berlusconi has claimed, not without justification, to have been the prototype Trump. Despite a criminal conviction, Mr. Berlusconi is still a political player, though more of a kingmaker than a candidate these days. Yet he is behind the times (FB 1m, TW 19,300). The King of Twitter in Italy is former prime minister Matteo Renzi (FB 1.1m, TW 3.34m), although on Facebook he trails the populists: the two Five Star Movement leaders, Beppe Grillo (FB 1.9m, TW 2.5m) and Luigi di Maio (FB 1.1m, TW 0.3m), as well as the Northern League leader Matteo Salvini (FB 1.9m, TW 0.6m). Follower counts of Italy's political figures In millions Twitter Facebook https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/ 4/1/18, 10E02 PM Page 11 of 15 Silvio Berlusconi 0.02 0.6 1.9 1 3.3 Matteo Renzi 1.1 2.5 Beppe Grillo Luigi di Maio 1.9 0.3 Matteo Salvini 1.1 0.6 1.9 THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:FACEBOOK, SOCIALBLADE (AS OF JAN. 18, 2018) DATA SHARE In Mexico, the best-known populist – Andrés Manuel López Obrador, universally known by his initials as "AMLO" – is a man of the left. On social media (FB 2.3m, TW 3.5m), AMLO is far ahead of the likely PRI nominee José Antonio Meade (FB 0.3m, TW 1m) and his PAN (National Action Party) counterpart Ricardo Anaya Cortes (FB 0.9m, TW 0.4m). True, AMLO is not the most followed Mexican politician: Rafael Moreno Valle, the former governor of Puebla, is now neck-andneck with him on Facebook. Only just behind AMLO on Twitter is the mayor of Mexico City, Miguel Angel Mancera. But neither Moreno Valle nor Mancera is going to be a presidential candidate. Follower counts of Mexico's political figures Millions Twitter Facebook Andrés Manuel López Obrador José Antonio Meade Ricardo Anaya Cortes 3.5 0.4 0.9 2.3 1 0.3 0.4 0.9 THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:FACEBOOK, SOCIALBLADE (AS OF JAN. 18, 2018) DATA SHARE Politics on Colombian social media also leans left. There, the leading figure is Gustavo Petro (FB 0.9m, TW 2.8m), the former mayor of Bogotá, who as a young man belonged to the guerrilla group the 19th of April Movement and who made his political reputation as an opponent of the conservative presidency of Álvaro Uribe. THE INESCAPABLE THREAT I t used to be that all politics was local. Today, perhaps, all politics is becoming social, in that social media have emerged as the crucial battleground of modern elections. Just a few years ago, that would have seemed like a good idea. What could be more democratic, after all, than enabling politicians to communicate their messages directly to individual voters, and to hear back from them in real time? The only thing to worry about was whether or not online speech was truly free – the core preoccupation of Freedom House's annual "Freedom on the Net" survey. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/ 4/1/18, 10E02 PM Page 12 of 15 But what if the biggest threat to democracy is not online censorship or surveillance, but the near-total absence of regulation of politics on social media? The public is beginning to sense this. A new Gallup-Knight survey, published last week, revealed that 57 per cent of Americans think that the way sites choose which stories to show to users presents "a major problem" for democracy. Just less than half of those interviewed favoured regulation of how the network platforms provide news. The difficulty is knowing what form regulation should take. As Sam Lessin – another former Facebooker – has argued, the real transformation of the public sphere is that a candidate "can for the first time effectively talk to each individual voter privately in their own home and tell them exactly what they want to hear … in a way that can't be tracked or audited." Forget fake news, Mr. Lessin argues. Forget the "feed bubbles" and "echo chambers" that have dominated the discussion in the United States. The real challenge is not that the public sphere has grown polarized. The challenge is that it has been so fragmented by misnamed social media that it is no longer a single public sphere. "It has been a foregone conclusion for a long time," Mr. Lessin concludes, doubtless remembering the inspirational Zuckerberg speeches of the pre-2016 era, "that the internet has been a vehicle for moving us toward speaking one common language and being able to work together to solve the great problems of our era. … The sad reality is that the most exciting attempt to bring our world together is putting us at risk of not being able to trust what we see or hear" – but (and this is the point he missed) voting for the most engaging candidate anyway. Hit "esc" all you like. This is the real – and inescapable – threat facing every democracy today. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/THE GLOBE AND MAIL MODERN MEDIA: MORE FROM THE GLOBE AND MAIL https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/ 4/1/18, 10E02 PM Page 13 of 15 Your smartphone is making you stupid, antisocial and unhealthy. So why can’t you put it down? A decade ago, smart devices promised to change the way we think and interact, and they have – but not by making us smarter. Eric Andrew-Gee explores the growing body of scientific evidence that digital distraction is damaging our minds. What is ‘fake news,’ and how can you spot it? Try our quiz It’s a term with a lot of pejorative and partisan baggage, but ‘fake news’ describes a real problem: Media that’s custom-made to fool you. Globe digital editor Evan Annett offers some pointers on how to avoid falling for hoaxes. Douglas Coupland on Marshall McLuhan’s prescience in modern political times Mark Medley speaks with biographer Douglas Coupland on why the culture and communications guru’s theories still resonate today – perhaps more than ever. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @GLOBEDEBATE REPORT AN ERROR As of December 20, 2017, we have temporarily removed commenting from our articles as we switch to a new provider. 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All rights reserved. 351 King Street East, Suite 1600, Toronto, ON Canada, M5A 0N1 Phillip Crawley, Publisher https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/ 4/1/18, 10E02 PM Page 15 of 15 Like 360K Search in newsroom Share Home News Products Company Info Directory Media Gallery Investor Relations Contact Us January 22, 2018 Hard Questions: What Effect Does Social Media Have on Democracy? press@fb.com Categories Company News Product News Hard Questions News Feed FYI Measurement FYI Search FYI Community Boost Archive 2018 2017 2016 2015 https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 1 of 19 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 Posted by Facebook 2007 2006 Featured News By Samidh Chakrabarti, Product Manager, Civic Engagement This post is part of a series on social media and democracy. Hard Questions: What is Facebook Doing to Protect Election Security? March 29, 2018 We want to provide regular Around the world, social media is making it easier updates on what we’re doing for people to have a voice in government — to discuss issues, organize around causes, and hold leaders accountable. As recently as 2011, when social media played a critical role in the Arab Spring in places like Tunisia, it was heralded as a technology for liberation. and the progress we’re making. Read more A lot has changed since then. The 2016 US presidential election brought to the fore the risks of foreign meddling, “fake news” and political polarization. The effect of social media on politics https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 2 of 19 has never been so crucial to examine. All of this raises an important question: what effect It’s Time to Make Our Privacy Tools Easier to Find does social media have on democracy? March 28, 2018 We’ve heard loud and clear As the product manager in charge of civic that privacy settings and engagement on Facebook, I live and breathe these other important tools are too issues. And while I’m an optimist at heart, I’m not blind to the damage that the internet can do to Read more hard to find and that… even a well-functioning democracy. That’s why I’m dedicated to understanding these risks and ensuring the good far overshadows the bad. With each passing year, this challenge becomes more urgent. Facebook was originally designed to connect friends and family — and it has excelled at that. But as unprecedented numbers of people channel their political energy through this medium, it’s being used in unforeseen ways with societal repercussions that were never anticipated. In 2016, we at Facebook were far too slow to recognize how bad actors were abusing our platform. We’re working diligently to neutralize these risks now. We can’t do this alone, which is why we want to initiate an open conversation on the hard questions this work raises. In this post, I’ll share how we are thinking about confronting the most consequential downsides of social media on https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 3 of 19 democracy, and also discuss how we’re working to amplify the positive ways it can strengthen democracy, too. Foreign Interference Let’s start with the elephant in the room. Around the US 2016 election, Russian entities set up and promoted fake Pages on Facebook to influence public sentiment — essentially using social media as an information weapon. Although we didn’t know it at the time, we discovered that these Russian actors created 80,000 posts that reached around 126 million people in the US over a two-year period. This kind of activity goes against everything we stand for. It’s abhorrent to us that a nation-state used our platform to wage a cyberwar intended to divide society. This was a new kind of threat that we couldn’t easily predict, but we should have done better. Now we’re making up for lost time. The Russian interference worked in part by promoting inauthentic Pages, so we’re working to make politics on Facebook more transparent. We’re making it possible to visit an advertiser’s Page and see the ads they’re currently running. We’ll soon also require organizations running election-related ads to confirm their identities so we can show viewers of their ads who exactly paid for them. Finally, we’ll archive electoral ads and make them https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 4 of 19 searchable to enhance accountability. As critical as this plan is, it poses challenges. How, for example, do we avoid putting legitimate activity at risk? Many human rights organizations commonly use Facebook to spread educational messages around the world. The wrong kind of transparency could put these activists in real danger in many countries. But we’re committed to this issue of transparency because it goes beyond Russia. Without transparency, it can be hard to hold politicians accountable for their own words. Micro-targeting can enable dishonest campaigns to spread toxic discourse without much consequence. Democracy then suffers because we don’t get the full picture of what our leaders are promising us. This is an even more pernicious problem than foreign interference. But we hope that by setting a new bar for transparency, we can tackle both of these challenges simultaneously. False News But foreign interference isn’t the only means of corrupting a democracy. We recognize that the same tools that give people more voice can sometimes be used, by anyone, to spread hoaxes and misinformation. There is active debate about how much of our information diet is tainted by false news — and how much it influences people’s behavior. But even a handful of deliberately https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 5 of 19 misleading stories can have dangerous consequences. To take just one example, in Australia a false news story claimed that the first Muslim woman to be a Member of Parliament had refused to lay a wreath on a national day of remembrance. This led people to flood her Facebook Page with abusive comments. In the public debate over false news, many believe Facebook should use its own judgment to filter out misinformation. We’ve chosen not to do that because we don’t want to be the arbiters of truth, nor do we imagine this is a role the world would want for us. Instead, we’ve made it easier to report false news and have taken steps in partnership with thirdparty fact checkers to rank these stories lower in News Feed. Once our fact checking partners label a story as false, we’re able to reduce future impressions of the story on Facebook by 80%. We’re also working to make it harder for bad actors to profit from false news, eliminating their incentive to create this content in the first place. Finally, since the best deterrent will ultimately be a discerning public, we’ve started sharing more context about the news sources people see on Facebook. By helping people sharpen their social media literacy, we can help society be more resilient to misleading stories. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 6 of 19 Even with all these countermeasures, the battle will never end. Misinformation campaigns are not amateur operations. They are professionalized and constantly try to game the system. We will always have more work to do. Echo Chambers One of the most common criticisms of social media is that it creates echo chambers where people only see viewpoints they agree with — further driving us apart. That’s a legitimate issue but it’s more complex than how it is sometimes portrayed. Compared with the media landscape of the past, social media exposes us to a more diverse range of views. A recent Reuters Institute Digital News Report found that 44% of people in the US who use social media for news end up seeing sources from both the left and the right — more than twice the rate of people who don’t use social media. The deeper question is how people respond when they encounter these differing opinions — do they listen to them, ignore them, or even block them? Think about how our minds work. It’s natural to seek out information that confirms what we already believe — a phenomenon social scientists call “confirmation bias.” Walter Quattrociocchi, Antonio Scala and Cass Sunstein found evidence last year that social media users are drawn to https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 7 of 19 information that strengthens their preferred narratives and reject information that undermines it. That makes bursting these bubbles hard because it requires pushing against deeply ingrained human instincts. Research shows that some obvious ideas — like showing people an article from an opposing perspective — could actually make us dig in even more. A better approach might be to show people many views, not just the opposing side. We recently started testing this idea with a feature called Related Articles that shows people articles with a range of perspectives on the news they’re already reading about. We’ll see if it helps, and we’re eager to share our findings. Political Harassment While we want Facebook to be a safe place for people to express themselves politically, we need to make sure no one is bullied or threatened for their views. To make matters more complex, governments themselves sometimes engage in such harassment. In one country we recently visited, a citizen reported that after he had posted a video critical of the authorities, the police paid him a visit to inspect his tax compliance. As more countries write laws that attempt to criminalize online discourse, https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 8 of 19 the risk grows that states use their power to intimidate their critics. That could have a chilling effect on speech. Even in more open societies, we’re seeing cases where government officials write hateful posts that make enforcing our Community Standards challenging. So far, we’ve kept such posts up on our platform since we view them as newsworthy information that citizens deserve to know. We’ve also found these posts often become important magnets for counter-speech, but we recognize reasonable people may disagree with this policy. Our concerns with political hate speech aren’t limited to the online sphere — we also need to be vigilant that social media doesn’t facilitate offline violence. Policing this content at a global scale is an open research problem since it is hard for machines to understand the cultural nuances of political intimidation. And while we are hiring over 10,000 more people this year to work on safety and security, this is likely to remain a challenge. Unequal Participation While foreign meddling, misinformation, echo chambers and hate speech get the headlines, what worries me most is how social media can distort policymakers’ perception of public opinion. People on Facebook tend to represent every walk of life, https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 9 of 19 but not everyone is using their voice equally. Take women. They represent a majority of the population, yet are under-represented in public political dialogue on Facebook. If politicians mistake the views of a few with the views of many, that can make for bad public policy. Vulnerable populations could end up ignored, and fringe groups could appear mainstream. We’re trying to move the needle on this by studying, for example, why women participate less in political discourse online. In some of our civic features, we’ve incorporated these lessons and pioneered new privacy models that help to increase women’s participation. They still aren’t on par with men, but we’re getting closer. This is proof in my eyes that research-driven design can make social media a better medium for democracy. Giving Voice Clearly, there is no shortage of challenges at the convergence of social media and democracy. But there are also many bright spots that keep me coming to work every day. First, social media has enormous power to keep people informed. According to the Pew Research Center, two-thirds of US adults consume at least some of their news on social media. Since many people are happening upon news they weren’t explicitly seeking out, social media is often https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 10 of 19 expanding the audience for news. More importantly, people aren’t just reading news — they’re actively discussing it. The implications for civic engagement are profound. It has long been observed that when people discuss the news, they’re more likely to be involved in their community, whether by volunteering or reaching out to elected officials. There is growing evidence that this is also true for social media — especially among young people. Social media platforms are driving people not just to learn about issues but to take action. During the 2016 US election alone, we estimate our voter registration efforts on Facebook led more than 2 million people to register to vote. Even more encouraging is that we’re seeing how social media can help people be more knowledgeable voters. During the last US election, we created Voting Plan, a tool to preview your local ballot and discuss it with friends. Millions of people did so. On average this increased people’s knowledge of their ballot by over 6%. That’s equivalent to raising the average ballot knowledge of the entire US Facebook community by a few grade levels. But perhaps what inspires me most of all is that with social media, people can have a voice in their government everyday, not just on election day. Some 87% of governments around the world have https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 11 of 19 a presence on Facebook. And they’re listening — and responding — to what they hear. In Iceland, for example, when someone moves to a new neighborhood, the first thing they often do is join their community’s Facebook group. They tag their representatives in posts and push for the issues they want taken to Parliament. Conversations like these are quietly reinvigorating local governance around the world. To bring this experience to more people, in 2016 we built a feature that makes it simple to follow all your elected representatives on Facebook with a single click. When we launched it in the US, it doubled the number of connections between people and their government. We’ve since seen a similar level of impact in other places like Germany and Japan. This means that for the first time in history, people can keep up with their government as easily as they keep up with their friends. This is unlocking new waves of latent civic energy and putting power into more hands. So, What Effect Does Social Media Have on Democracy? If there’s one fundamental truth about social media’s impact on democracy it’s that it amplifies human intent — both good and bad. At its best, it allows us to express ourselves and take action. At https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 12 of 19 its worst, it allows people to spread misinformation and corrode democracy. I wish I could guarantee that the positives are destined to outweigh the negatives, but I can’t. That’s why we have a moral duty to understand how these technologies are being used and what can be done to make communities like Facebook as representative, civil and trustworthy as possible. This is a new frontier and we don’t pretend to have all the answers. But I promise you that my team and many more here are dedicated to this pursuit. We’ll share what we learn and collaborate with you to find the answers. What gives me hope is that the same ingenuity that helped make social media an incredible way to connect with friends can also be applied to making it an effective way to connect with the public square. In the end, that’s why I believe that a more connected world can be a more democratic one. Samidh Chakrabarti is a product manager at Facebook, where he is responsible for politics and elections products globally. Before coming to Facebook, he was the product lead for Google’s civic engagement initiative. His background is in both technology and public policy, and he’s spent his career working to combine them in service of the common good. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 13 of 19 30 Comments Sort by Top Add a comment... Rodney Bertelli Hello Samidh. So, you are going to employ "3rd Party Fact Checkers" huh? Forgive my skepticism, but just who are these "3rd Party Fact Checkers" going to be and can the first two parties (your customers) trust them completely. will you be having your foxes guarding my hen house? I noticed that you didn't say "independent 3rd party fact checkers" or "bipartisan fact checkers". Who will "check' YOUR "Fact Checkers"? Will certain "facts" be ignored in order to justify the "facts" that fit a certain narrative? Just like the IRS and the FBI who conveniently lose key data or use their immense power... See More Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 5 · 9w Claude Courouve Yes, Who will "check' YOUR "Fact Checkers"? Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 9w Rodney Bertelli Claude Courouve Your retort validates my question to Facebook and their promises for "fact checkers". I try to seek input from multiple sources (especially ones that I do not agree with, because I do believe it is good to know what your political opposition is thinking), but I distrust unnamed source "information", snarky internet trolls and echo chamber news outlets where https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 14 of 19 echo chamber news outlets where EVERYONE uses the exact same language, words and phrases in the exact same order and manner as if they are unoriginal robots It is obvious that the robots get "porgrammed" from a single source memo. Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 9w Facebook The outside fact-checkers we work with include AP, Politifact, Factcheck.org, Snopes and the Weekly Standard. Each are approved by Poynter Institute and follow their code of conduct. Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 2 · 9w Show 1 more reply in this thread Lucas Cioffi Hastings-on-Hudson, New York Hello Samidh, thanks for opening up this conversation. In the video, you mention that it's important that people have an opportunity to engage in conversation around the news. Has your team considered creating a tool for deeper conversations on Facebook? The way Facebook comments are currently implemented leaves a lot to be desired. Commenting on a photo and commenting on news are two very different experiences, so it would be wonderful if people weren't constrained to using the same tool for both. I'd also point out that I cannot @-mention you here in this comment, so I don't expect that you will even see or respond to this comment. If you do, I would be impressed! When middle-of-theroad people like me don't have faith in your tools, we are less likely to spend time using https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 15 of 19 them, and louder people who are on the fringes dominate. Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 1 · 9w Samidh Chakrabarti There is definitely a lot of room for innovation when it comes to commenting systems. We have a whole team working on this problem and trying to create better incentives for civil, constructive conversations. Definitely a hard problem, but one we're dedicated to improving. Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 10 · 9w Robert Bjarnason Langholtsskóli Dear Samidh, Thanks for a good insightful article. My name is Robert Bjarnason and I’m the president of the Citizens Foundation in Iceland, a non-profit organization promoting democratic innovation and citizen participation in Iceland and the world since 2008. Regarding your comment about when people in Iceland move to a new neighborhood they join community groups then yes, this is common. But your example of people tagging their representatives to push for issues does happen but is not that common, if you have any inside statistics on this type of activity we’d love to know more. Amongst m... See More Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 4 · 9w · Edited Gunnar Grímsson Kosningastjóri í Reykjanesbæ at Píratar Very good comment, an answer to this question: "Do we think it’s good for democracy and trust in society to have https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 16 of 19 democracy and trust in society to have private companies with profit motives develope and operate our democratic processes?" would be most interesting from Samidh. Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 9w Ron Chusid Spring Lake, Michigan Democracy thrives with open discussion, but instead Facebook had been censoring political discussion, using algorithms which incorrectly label comments as spam, or perhaps due to falling for partisans who file false complaints because they disagree with a post. Democracy thrives with the free spread of information, but instead Facebook also frequently blocks posts with links, falsely calling them spam, or perhaps seeing them as fake news. Labels of fake news have far too often been used as an excuse for censorship. Rather than finding ways to restrict discussion, if you believe in democracy you should be getting out of way and allow us to freely discuss the issues and share information. Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 4 · 9w Chris Meeks Xavier University I applaud Facebook’s transparency about the good and the bad inherent in social media as it’s currently manifested. We now know the sobering truth and Facebook is acknowledging the danger, which is something to build on. What I’d like to know is: will Facebook continue to enable the unhealthy behaviors inherent in human psychology? As you’ve noted, confirmation bias and social media addiction are unhealthy (even if profitable). Will you push against profitable decisions for the benefits of emotional well-being? If you definitively answer https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 17 of 19 emotional well-being? If you definitively answer “Yes!”, then you will have a true guiding principle, a ... See More Like · Reply · Mark as spam · 9w Facebook Thank you for the comment. We take that responsibility you describe very seriously. One of our company priorities this year is making sure the time people spend on Facebook is time well spent. We’re investing in research to better understand the relationship between social media and well-being, and Category: Hard Questions Like 939 Training 1 Million People and Small Businesses in Europe by 2020 Email Share Guest Post: Is Social Media Good or Bad for Democracy? Related News January 22, 2018 Hard Questions: Social Media and Democracy About Contact Us Investor Relations Privacy Terms https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ Country: United States (English) 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 18 of 19 Facebook © 2018 Powered by WordPress.com VIP https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/effect-social-media-democracy/ 4/1/18, 9?36 PM Page 19 of 19 Letter to America, by Margaret Atwood (2003) ORIGINAL TEXT Dear America: This is a difficult letter to write, because I’m no longer sure who you are. Some of you may be having the same trouble. I thought I knew you: We’d become well acquainted over the past fifty-five years. You were the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comic books I read in the late 1940s. You were the radio shows–Jack Benny, Our Miss Brooks. You were the music I sang and danced to: the Andrews Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, the Platters, Elvis. You were a ton of fun. You wrote some of my favorite books. You created Huckleberry Finn, and Hawkeye, and Beth and Jo in Little Women, courageous in their different ways. Later, you were my beloved Thoreau, father of environmentalism, witness to individual conscience; and Walt Whitman, singer of the great Republic; and Emily Dickinson, keeper of the private soul. You were Hammett and Chandler, heroic walkers of mean streets; even later, you were the amazing trio, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner, who traced the dark labyrinths of your hidden heart. You were Sinclair Lewis and Arthur Miller, who, with their own American idealism, went after the sham in you, because they thought you could do better. You were Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, you were Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo, you were Lillian Gish in Night of the Hunter. You stood up for freedom, honesty and justice; you protected the innocent. I believed most of that. I think you did, too. It seemed true at the time. You put God on the money, though, even then. You had a way of thinking that the things of Caesar were the same as the things of God: That gave you self-confidence. You have always wanted to be a city upon a hill, a light to all nations, and for a while you were. Give me your tired, your poor, you sang, and for a while you meant it. We’ve always been close, you and us. History, that old entangler, has twisted us together since the early seventeenth century. Some of us used to be you; some of us want to be you; some of you used to be us. You are not only our neighbors: In many cases–mine, for instance–you are also our blood relations, our colleagues and our personal friends. But although we’ve had a ringside seat, we’ve never understood you completely, up here north of the 49th parallel. We’re like Romanized Gauls–look like Romans, dress like Romans, but aren’t Romans–peering over the wall at the real Romans. What are they doing? Why? What are they doing now? Why is the haruspex eyeballing the sheep’s liver? Why is the soothsayer wholesaling the Bewares? Perhaps that’s been my difficulty in writing you this letter: I’m not sure I know what’s really going on. Anyway, you have a huge posse of experienced entrail-sifters who do nothing but analyze your every vein and lobe. What can I tell you about yourself that you don’t already know? This might be the reason for my hesitation: embarrassment, brought on by a becoming modesty. But it is more likely to be embarrassment of another sort. When my grandmother–from a New England background–was confronted with an unsavory topic, she would change the subject and gaze out the window. And that is my own inclination: Keep your mouth shut, mind your own business. But I’ll take the plunge, because your business is no longer merely your business. To paraphrase Marley’s Ghost, who figured it out too late, mankind is your business. And vice versa: When the Jolly Green Giant goes on the rampage, many lesser plants and animals get trampled underfoot. As for us, you’re our biggest trading partner: We know perfectly well that if you go down the plug-hole, we’re going with you. We have every reason to wish you well. I won’t go into the reasons why I think your recent Iraqi adventures have been–taking the long view–an ill-advised tactical error. By the time you read this, Baghdad may or may not be a pancake, and many more sheep entrails will have been examined. Let’s talk, then, not about what you’re doing to other people but about what you’re doing to yourselves. You’re gutting the Constitution. Already your home can be entered without your knowledge or permission, you can be snatched away and incarcerated without cause, your mail can be spied on, your private records searched. Why isn’t this a recipe for widespread business theft, political intimidation and fraud? I know you’ve been told that all this is for your own safety and protection, but think about it for a minute. Anyway, when did you get so scared? You didn’t used to be easily frightened. You’re running up a record level of debt. Keep spending at this rate and pretty soon you won’t be able to afford any big military adventures. Either that or you’ll go the way of the USSR: lots of tanks, but no air conditioning. That will make folks very cross. They’ll be even crosser when they can’t take a shower because your shortsighted bulldozing of environmental protections has dirtied most of the water and dried up the rest. Then things will get hot and dirty indeed. You’re torching the American economy. How soon before the answer to that will be not to produce anything yourselves but to grab stuff other people produce, at gunboat-diplomacy prices? Is the world going to consist of a few mega-rich King Midases, with the rest being serfs, both inside and outside your country? Will the biggest business sector in the United States be the prison system? Let’s hope not. If you proceed much further down the slippery slope, people around the world will stop admiring the good things about you. They’ll decide that your city upon the hill is a slum and your democracy is a sham, and therefore you have no business trying to impose your sullied vision on them. They’ll think you’ve abandoned the rule of law. They’ll think you’ve fouled your own nest. The British used to have a myth about King Arthur. He wasn’t dead, but sleeping in a cave, it was said; and in the country’s hour of greatest peril, he would return. You too have great spirits of the past you may call upon: men and women of courage, of conscience, of prescience. Summon them now, to stand with you, to inspire you, to defend the best in you. You need them. 1 In order to provide international perspective in the debate over US foreign policy, [the news magazine,] The Nation, asked foreign commentators to share their reflections. This is the seventh in that series. –The Editors Letter to America By Margaret Atwood, Canadian Author The Nation MARCH 27, 2003 This is written as an open letter to the US, but it still functions as an essay that makes an argument. The letter format is a literary device. Main Claim Context & Contrast Subclaim Rhetorical Device/Tone Evidence Reasoning/Principles Uh oh. Tone is somber. Something is wrong. Dear America: This is a difficult letter to write, because I’m no longer sure who you are. Some of you may be having the same trouble. I thought I knew you: We’d become well acquainted over the past fifty-five years. Nostalgic You were the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comic books I read in the late 1940s. You and were the radio shows–Jack Benny, Our Miss Brooks. You were the music I sang and endearing danced to: the Andrews Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, the Platters, Elvis. You were a ton of fun. cultural icons of You wrote some of my favorite books. You created Huckleberry Finn, and America. Hawkeye, and Beth and Jo in Little Women, courageous in their different ways. Later, The you were my beloved Thoreau, father of environmentalism, witness to individual context conscience; and Walt Whitman, singer of the great Republic; and Emily Dickinson, of “what was.” keeper of the private soul. You were Hammett and Chandler, heroic walkers of mean streets; even later, you were the amazing trio, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner, who traced the dark labyrinths of your hidden heart. You were Sinclair Lewis and Arthur Miller, who, with their own American idealism, went after the sham in you, because they thought you could do better. You were Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, you were Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo, you were Lillian Gish in Night of the Hunter. You stood up for freedom, honesty and Start of justice; you protected the innocent. I believed most of that. I think you did, too. It seemed critique: point true at the time. one: US You put God on the money, though, even then. You had a way of thinking that the equates things of Caesar were the same as the things of God: That gave you self-confidence. You things of have always wanted to be a city upon a hill, a light to all nations, and for a while you were. Caesar (political Give me your tired, your poor, you sang, and for a while you meant it. things) We’ve always been close, you and us. History, that old entangler, has Establishes with twisted us together since the early seventeenth century. Some of us used to relationship things of between US and Canada as one of affiliation, but unequal affiliation be you; some of us want to be you; some of you used to be us. You are not only our neighbors: In many cases–mine, for instance–you are also our blood relations, our colleagues and our personal friends. But although we’ve had a ringside seat, we’ve never understood you completely, up here north of the 49th parallel. We’re like Romanized Gauls–look like Romans, dress like Romans, but aren’t Romans–peering over the wall at the real Romans. What are they doing? Why? What are they doing now? Why is the haruspex eyeballing the sheep’s liver? Why is the soothsayer wholesaling The US has a mystical the Bewares? quality in its power. God (spiritual things; or supreme human values). As though we think we’re gods? 2 Perhaps that’s been my difficulty in writing you this letter: I’m not sure I know what’s really going on. Anyway, you have a huge posse of experienced entrail-sifters who do nothing but analyze your every vein and lobe. What can I tell you about yourself that These were you don’t already know? Roman This might be the reason for my hesitation: embarrassment, Speaker sacrificial wants to be brought on by a becoming modesty. But it is more likely to be rituals for polite, but embarrassment of another sort. When my grandmother–from a New divination, feels like reading England background–was confronted with an unsavory topic, she compelled to tea leaves. would change the subject and gaze out the window. And that is my say own inclination: Keep your mouth shut, mind your own business. something. We are all (the But I’ll take the plunge, because your business is no longer merely your whole world) business. To paraphrase Marley’s Ghost, who figured it out too late, mankind is your in it together business. And vice versa: When the Jolly Green Giant goes on the rampage, many and all have lesser plants and animals get trampled underfoot. As for us, you’re our biggest trading responsibility. partner: We know perfectly well that if you go down the plug-hole, we’re going with you. We have every reason to wish you well. Strategic and rhetorical I won’t go into the reasons why I think your recent Iraqi adventures have been– strategy – taking the long view–an ill-advised tactical error. By the time you read this, Baghdad here’s she’s may or may not be a pancake, and many more sheep entrails will have been turning to face examined. Let’s talk, then, not about what you’re doing to other people but about her subject. what you’re doing to yourselves. The main claim may You’re gutting the Constitution. Already your home can be entered without relate to this your knowledge or permission, you can be snatched away and incarcerated without maneuver. cause, your mail can be spied on, your private records searched. Why isn’t this a recipe for widespread business theft, political intimidation and fraud? I know you’ve been told that all this is for your own safety and protection, but think about it for a minute. Anyway, when did you get so scared? You didn’t used to be easily frightened. You’re running up a record level of debt. Keep spending at this rate and pretty soon you won’t be able to afford any big military adventures. Either that or you’ll go the way of the USSR: lots of tanks, but no air conditioning. That will make folks very cross. They’ll be even crosser when they can’t take a shower because your shortsighted bulldozing of environmental protections has dirtied most of the water and dried up the rest. Then things will get hot and dirty indeed. You’re torching the American economy. How soon before the answer to that will be not to produce anything yourselves but to grab stuff other people produce, at gunboat-diplomacy prices? Is the world going to consist of a few mega-rich King Midases, with the rest being serfs, both inside and outside your country? Will the biggest business sector in the United States be the prison system? Let’s hope not. If you proceed much further down the slippery slope, people around the world will stop admiring the good things about you. They’ll decide that your city upon the hill is a slum and your democracy is a sham, and therefore you have no business trying to impose your sullied vision on them. They’ll think you’ve abandoned the rule of law. They’ll think you’ve fouled your own nest. The British used to have a myth about King Arthur. He wasn’t dead, but sleeping in a cave, it was said; and in the country’s hour of greatest peril, he would return. You too have great spirits of the past you may call upon: men and women of courage, of conscience, of prescience. Summon them now, to stand with you, to inspire you, to defend the best in you. You need them. 3 SAMPLE PRECIS Precis: “Letter to America In the midst of US involvement in Iraq in 2003, Canadian novelist, activist, and inventor Margaret Atwood argues in “Letter to America” that the US must call upon the best of itself to right its historical course if it hopes to carry on as a world leader. Atwood contends that the US’s foreign policy in 2003 has hurt the US because it violated the Constitution, ran up massive debt, harmed the US economy, and harmed the US’s position as an influential world leader, capable of bringing and affirming principles democracy and the rule of law to countries around the globe (1). Atwood writes this open letter to encourage the US to reconsider its foreign policy and make a course correction in order to live out its promise and fortify all countries that depend on its sound foreign policy. Atwood makes a logical and appropriately emotional plea intended to reach those in power who can effect change in US foreign policy and a to general audience that can encourage necessary changes to US foreign policy through the democratic process. How sound is this source and why? Margaret Atwood was approached by the publication, The Nation (liberal orientation), to comment on US foreign policy. She was sought out as a political thinker, an ability she demonstrates in her novels such as A Handmaid’s Tale. While her work appears to be written from a personal, nostalgic, and folksy perspective, the force of the piece credibly reaches into the larger stage of world affairs. However, to support her claims, she provides more rhetorical questions than evidence (which might only convince those who are already convinced). In all, this work might provide context or quotes for a scholarly essay but wouldn’t be appropriate as a key source. Instead, she raises questions to help galvanize political and public opinion and possibly for further scholarly study. What do you especially agree with based on your current understanding and why? I am persuaded by the notion that all countries share entwined fates and that we must work together (and as equals). The US has come to occupy an overly powerful position in the world stage, reaching into countries to influence their political processes and in significant cases to the detriment of their people. I do think the US forgets its secular and fallible position in the world, as Atwood alludes to. As I recall, the war in Iraq was fought based on false information; it seems now as though it resulted from political manipulation and possibly for corporate and political gain – which underscores Atwood’s notion that we are off-course. I do recall the near collapse of our economy in 2008 that she predicts. She also refers to the prison problem in the US which makes me think she has been aware of other significant problems in this country that demonstrate the need for a course correction. Her rhetorical strategies (evoking nostalgia, getting readers to think about what America once was, speaking as a trusted neighbor chatting over the fence, the appropriate gravity of her “We have to talk” tone) are effective. What do you especially disagree with based on your current understanding and why? I don’t disagree with her points; I recognize dangers she describes as real, and I see the consequences she depicts played out in real life. It wasn’t especially meaty, though, to find much room for debate. Has your thinking about your chosen topic changed as a result of this source and why/why not? It affirms what I have thought with many years of hindsight since 2003. I think under all administrations, we continue to make poor foreign policy choices. 4 Last Name 1 Name Instructor Trina Larson ENGL 124 Day Month Year Rhetorical Précis: Title of Source 1 Begin by annotating your texts; then follow the format for your first précis, here. You can type the body single-spaced to make each entry easier to read. For more information on the contents of the précis, visit our instructional pages in Canvas. In short, each précis should include a) in a single coherent sentence, the name of the author, author’s profession, and title of their work, a rhetorically accurate verb (e.g., assert, argue, deny, refute, prove, disprove, explain), and a “that” clause containing the main claim of the work; b) in a single coherent sentence, an explanation of how the author develops and supports the major claim with key subclaims that are specifically named, between commas or semi-colons, including a citation; c) in a single coherent sentence, the author's purpose, followed by an "in order to" phrase; and d) in a single coherent sentence a description of the intended audience and/or the relationship the author establishes with the audience and/or perceived biases of the author. Following each précis, respond to the following questions, then upload this document and your annotated source texts to the submission site I’ll create for you each week. How sound is this source and why? Response What do you find strong or especially agree with based on your current understanding and why? Response What do you find weak, fallacious, or especially disagree with based on your current understanding and why? Response Has your thinking about your chosen topic changed as a result of this source and why/why not? Response Works Cited This is only for sources you find through independent research in Weeks 13-14. For the purposes of this assignment only, Works Cited does not require its own page. Type the correct template for this kind of entry from Purdue OWL handout here Type the correct entry for your entry here, following the pattern of the template shown above. 1 Last Name 2 Rhetorical Précis: Title of Source 2 Begin by annotating your texts; then follow the format for your first précis, here. You can type the body single-spaced to make each entry easier to read. For more information on the contents of the précis, visit our instructional pages in Canvas. In short, each précis should include a) in a single coherent sentence, the name of the author, author’s profession, and title of their work, a rhetorically accurate verb (e.g., assert, argue, deny, refute, prove, disprove, explain), and a “that” clause containing the main claim of the work; b) in a single coherent sentence, an explanation of how the author develops and supports the major claim with key subclaims that are specifically named, between commas or semi-colons, including a citation; c) in a single coherent sentence, the author's purpose, followed by an "in order to" phrase; and d) in a single coherent sentence a description of the intended audience and/or the relationship the author establishes with the audience and/or perceived biases of the author. Following each précis, respond to the following questions, then upload this document and your annotated source texts to the submission site I’ll create for you each week. How sound is this source and why? Response What do you find strong or especially agree with based on your current understanding and why? Response What do you find weak, fallacious, or especially disagree with based on your current understanding and why? Response Has your thinking about your chosen topic changed as a result of this source and why/why not? Response Works Cited This is only for sources you find through independent research in Weeks 13-14. For the purposes of this assignment only, Works Cited does not require its own page. Type the correct template for this kind of entry from Purdue OWL handout here Type the correct entry for your entry here, following the pattern of the template shown above. 2 Last Name 3 Rhetorical Précis: Title of Source 3 (Week 13 Only) Begin by annotating your texts; then follow the format for your first précis, here. You can type the body single-spaced to make each entry easier to read. For more information on the contents of the précis, visit our instructional pages in Canvas. In short, each précis should include a) in a single coherent sentence, the name of the author, author’s profession, and title of their work, a rhetorically accurate verb (e.g., assert, argue, deny, refute, prove, disprove, explain), and a “that” clause containing the main claim of the work; b) in a single coherent sentence, an explanation of how the author develops and supports the major claim with key subclaims that are specifically named, between commas or semi-colons, including a citation; c) in a single coherent sentence, the author's purpose, followed by an "in order to" phrase; and d) in a single coherent sentence a description of the intended audience and/or the relationship the author establishes with the audience and/or perceived biases of the author. Following each précis, respond to the following questions, then upload this document and your annotated source texts to the submission site I’ll create for you each week. How sound is this source and why? Response What do you find strong or especially agree with based on your current understanding and why? Response What do you find weak, fallacious, or especially disagree with based on your current understanding and why? Response Has your thinking about your chosen topic changed as a result of this source and why/why not? Response Works Cited For the purposes of this assignment only, Works Cited does not require its own page. Type the correct template for this kind of entry from Purdue OWL handout here Type the correct entry for your entry here, following the pattern of the template shown above. 3
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