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01.06.2010

SUPERFLUIDITY OF INFORMATION IN SOCIAL NETWORKS

   

Samvel Martirosyan

The problems of the new information systems

The appearance of the new technologies of the information spreading makes the possibility of the filtration more complicated not only for the common reader but also for the editor of the periodical who uses the alternative sources. And today the availability of the alternative information sources – blogs, social networks, microblogs – is the factor that the traditional mass media must take into consideration in their everyday work. Alternative media becomes the most actual information source both in the periods of serious cataclysms and in case of getting information from the regions where the work of press is hampered.

Today the traditional mass media more often face the situation when only the cooperation with the alternative sources allows meeting competition at the saturated media market. In fact, the modern technologies demand from the editors the specialized approach to the aggregation of the news in cases when the representatives of mass media are obliged to use the information from bloggers and people informing about the happenings on the Internet and with the help of mobile technologies.

Superconductovity of the Internet and superfluidity of information

It often happens that the authorities or other groups of people in one country or another have to reduce maximum the news flow. This often happens in countries with the dictatorship, or in case of states of emergency, wars and other such situations.

Several years ago the best way to “shut down” the information (besides censorship) was to draw special attention to the Internet, because through the networks information spreads much faster with the help of letters, forums and etc. The solution of the issue of the censorship on the Internet was the filtration – blocking of definite sites through which information may leak or just the opposite – one can penetrate into the internal information field. The issue of the content blocking on the net is solved through the control of the local providers which are assigned to block these or those web-sites, this or that outgoing or incoming traffic.

Однако, в последние несколько лет ситуация с проходимостью информации через барьеры резко возросла. Причин для этого несколько:

But over the recent several years the passability of traffic has grown abruptly. There are several reasons for that:

  1. Despite the growing efficiency of the Internet blocking systems, the ways to avoid filtration also develop rather actively. There are also many efficient ways to conceal the personality of the Internet activist. Many organizations carry out global events to avoid Internet censorship; various projects on providing the anonymity of the Internet activity are financed. Thus, in 2009 the international organization “Reporters without Borders” issued the second, renewed edition of “Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents”1 which is directed to prevent the blocking of information on the Internet.
    Besides, China – the country with the most efficient system of the Internet filtration – is not able to close all the gaps in its defence, which is often called “Great Chinese Firewall”. In spite of all the attempts to filtrate the, necessary information, with the due skill of the user, leaks in two directions from the virtual Chinese border.
  2. The number of the virtual social connections has grown abruptly. Today the sphere of a separate average Internet user is so broad, diversified and global that it allows disseminating information in very short time on the broadest possible radius through the receive/transmit links.
  3. Возможности распространения информации в сети становятся все более динамичными и кросс-платформенными. Так, на сегодняшний день пользователь имеет возможность через определенные сервисы мультиплицировать свое сообщение – публикация в одной социальной сети или блоге приводит к автоматическому возникновению той же записи на других аккаунтах того же пользователя, тем самым расширяя проникновение первичной информации. The capabilities to disseminate information on the net become even mote dynamic and cross-platform. Thus today a user can multiply his message with the help of definite services – the publication in one social network or blog bring to the automatic appearance of the same blog entry in other accounts of the same user thus broadening the penetration of the initial information.
  4. The other factor is the spreading of mobile technologies. Now anyone who has an average mobile phone is a potential social reporter who can shoot and put on the Web photos or video about some event which the traditional media can not cover or that information was under the censorship. Thus, Facebook social network has about 100 million users who use the mobile version of the site.
  5. The contemporary ways of the publication on the Web not only have a cross-platform structure and a possibility to multiply but they also make the automatic transformation of information types from one into another possible. Thus, today many platforms allow clients to publish news by sending SMS or letter of a definite content from their mobile phones. So even the simplest mobile phone which does not have optional features allows spreading important information through the global network within several seconds without Internet technologies.

Thus, contemporary Internet technologies, social networks permit the average user who has either a computer with the Internet access or a mobile phone even only with the possibility to send SMS to become the source of information at places which are difficult of access for traditional mass media.

At the same time the peculiarities of the modern Internet, which passes through the stage of hyper-socialization, bring to the snowballing dissemination of information of social significance filling in information flows fast. The information became superfluid and the Internet is close to the situation when it can be called superconducting – the speed of the dissemination of the information of critical significance through the informal social networks is close to the instantaneous one.

Supersaturation of the social networks

Traditional mass media have to react somehow to the appearance of such alternative information sources. Most frequently the competition brings to the merging of two types of media – press more often uses the messages of the bloggers who are involved in different networks. Thus during the encounters between the authorities and opposition in Iran after the presidential elections many Western mass media used the messages of the Iranian users at Twitter where messages from the streets came as a source of information. The immediacy of such information cannot be compared with anything because it comes directly from the witness of what is happening who covers the events with the help of his mobile phone (especially under the restrictions of the activity of foreign correspondents which were imposed by the Iranian authorities at that moment).

On the other hand, the online active flows of information about the events bring to the exaggerated interest of the users from all over the world. The insistent interest to the events, i.e. the drawing in of the huge audience to the definite flows, makes those flows vulnerable on behalf of the groups pursuing their goals. Thus, in case of activation of the events where the bloggers or social networks users who cover the happenings online are present, the situation causes the abrupt growth of the information flow in one direction (e.g. encounters in Iran, revolution in Kirgizstan and etc.). Correspondingly, a huge number of people appear who are interested in obtaining information in a frantic rush. Besides, often the second party to the conflict who aspires to conceal information also exists. Taking into consideration all what was said about the difficulties of blocking information, today new methods of censorship appear.

Today the snowballing increase of information flow causes not only the simple linear growth of the sources grading works and finding out most trustworthy once (let us mention that the increase of the flows is directly connected not only with the rising opportunities of Internet. The factor of increase in activity also works: e.g. the strengthening of the censorship causes the increase of the number and the quality of the social reporters – common people who want to bring the trustworthy information to the world’s notice). Today for editors of the traditional mass media (as well as for the users who want to find information through the social networks) the most essential problem is the huge increase of the quantity of information and the difficulty in finding the reliable sources.

Besides the common large information flow, the verification is also hampered by:

  1. The huge number of users copies the news in order to help to spread them. On the one hand, it is a positive factor. On the other hand, among those republications the original source is lost. Often the active “passer” may be considered as a source of origin.
  2. The spammers also show great interest in this; they place on the Web the information on an important topic while the link takes you to the site which is not connected with the topic at all and which receives additional traffic.
  3. Through the active topics the hackers spread a large number of viruses. Taking into consideration the interest to the topic the users very often click in a hurry on the links supposedly connected with the topical issue and go to the malicious sites. This is especially topical for Twitter where the services which generate the short links are used and because of this the user does not see where exactly he goes when he clicks on the link.
  4. The huge number of republications of the unverified information appears. People often confuse the events; the shots appear on the Web which are not connected with that particular event and etc.

The other essential peculiarity is the appearance of the new censorship method (which, however, is based on the old elaborations put on a new platform). Even during the events in Iran it became clear that the information flows are essentially deformed. On the one hand, several dozens of people with mobile phones worked at the streets. Then their messages were republished in huge numbers. But it was noticed that besides spam, viruses and just republications at some moment the huge amount of disinformation was put into circulation on the Internet. There were many suppositions that the disinformation was spread on the Web by the special services of Iran.

It is possible neither to confirm nor to disclaim that information. But the fact is that on the first days of encounters the special services of Iran did not manage to block all the ways of information leakage – the activists managed to send the information which was later republished by the tens of thousands activists all over the world. That is why the most efficient way to block information was not the direct blocking of the sources but their discrediting by the quantity and quality of the disinformation spread.

Thus, today several factors which are still difficult to control and demand special preparation (for the editors of mass media who use those sources or for experts and etc.) are considered to be the main problem of spreading information through the alternative mass media:

  1. The quantity of information in a time unit during the serious events which cause global interest becomes critical, which, in its turn, makes complicates the analysis and even makes it impossible.
  2. The amount of spam, malicious programmes, information “noise” becomes critically large.
  3. The controlled spreading of disinformation by one of the parties to the conflict covered makes the issue of the information verification extremely difficult. Especially, taking into consideration the anonymity of the Internet (which in such cases is often compelled – e.g. the dissident cannot openly cover the events because he jeopardizes his security).
1http://en.rsf.org/spip.php?page=article&id_article=33844
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