Citizens of Farmville, petition your (real) representatives!
December 28th, 2009 | by elisabeth | Published in iphone, ubicomp | 10 Comments
Our worries about ubiquitous human computing*—summarized in this earlier post—fall into two broad categories. First, there are potential bad effects on the workers, since traditional labor-law protections may not apply in cyberspace. Second, there are potential bad effects on the world. One example that JZ has given in talks is that lobbyists could pay workers to call their Congressional representatives and lobby for or against bills—whether or not the worker actually cared about those bills. In other words, ubiquitous human computing could offer another way to turn money into political power.
It seems that future is already here. Business Insider reports that a group called “Get Health Reform Right,” composed largely of insurers, has been paying people “virtual currency” to send emails opposing health care reform to their representatives. It works like this: Facebook users play FarmVille or Mafia Wars (I blocked them long ago, and so was surprised to find that millions of people are now playing them). To advance past certain levels, you essentially need “virtual currency” to buy better weapons, tools, whatever. You can buy virtual currency with real currency, or you can fill out various surveys and be rewarded with virtual currency. Get Health Reform Right had players taking surveys, which culminated in an email to the relevant representative: “I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will only create more problems, not solve the ones we have.”
That’s remarkably shameless—it’s not quite money-for-contacts, but it’s only a tiny step away, since GHRR is obviously paying to have the surveys inserted into FarmVille and Mafia Wars. Interestingly, the same scheme could work without even virtual currency payments. People clearly go a little crazy in pursuit of high scores, gold stars, and other gaming achievements. GHRR could just make its own Facebook game, and demand that an email be sent between every level. That’s not the same as paying money; is it unethical? My sense is yes—making it easy for already-concerned citizens to contact their reps is okay, but giving some external reward to people who may be totally disinterested is not. These fine lines will become important if the problem grows and there’s an attempt to make these practices illegal, instead of just unethical. (Of course, that assumes it’s possible to make it illegal—there’s the First Amendment, obviously, but this sounds a little like false advertising, which can be regulated.)
If this technique becomes frequently used, maybe it will just mean that short emails become meaningless noise in Congressional offices. I don’t think that would be good—there is a qualitative difference between GHRR’s actions and, say, political groups asking members who chose to join to send “virtual postcards” to their reps. Of course, maybe Congresspeople already ignore all form emails in the first place.
One interesting side note is that Apple recently faced a variation on this problem—a developer was paying users to pump up its iPhone app reviews (actually, giving the faux-reviewers free copies of its apps). Some concerned citizens noted this, wrote to Apple, and Apple kicked the developer and its 1000 apps out of the app store. We’ve certainly spent plenty of time worrying about Apple’s control over the iPhone on this blog, but this is the obvious upside: you can get rid of astroturfing pretty effectively. Even if (big if) GHRR’s actions were made illegal, enforcement might prove tricky if they moved beyond Facebook.
—By Elisabeth Oppenheimer
* As one commenter suggested, we probably need a better name for this phenomenon than ubiquitous human computing. Any ideas?
December 28th, 2009 at 9:42 am (#)
As you say: the easier it gets for citizens to contact representatives, the less impact their missives are likely to have. If a Congressperson wants to know how their constituents feel about a certain issue, they know where the opinion polling companies (and their state university social scientists) are…
December 28th, 2009 at 10:27 am (#)
How about “wrong crowd-sourcing”?
December 28th, 2009 at 10:47 am (#)
how about “appstro-turfing” ?!
December 28th, 2009 at 11:28 am (#)
It may be inevitable that we go this way, especially if citizen to government communication happens mostly online. Digg fails for the very same reason: with the right amount of incentive, any topic can rise or fall at someone else’s whim. That said, perhaps there are some creative ways to combat trolls and griefers (that’s what I consider GHRR to be in this case)? Without passing unnecessary laws?
December 28th, 2009 at 1:14 pm (#)
Have to agree with Ian on this one: a local MP aide explained to me that they do not take into account e-mails, unless they sounded really personnal (including spelling mistakes); I don’t think we are a Amazon truk away from being massively astroturfed, and I have to assume most decision are already based on similar kind of influence—I mean, that certainly wasn’t informed opinion— but laundering the effort through FarmVille could make political advertising far more effective: you can target easy to influence groups with message as non-sensical as the one you quote, hope friends who received the same message talk about it in the way you want, and have cores of supporters who won’t be sensitive to reasonnable arguments, all without a historical political base. No need to lobby when you can be the most powerful spin in two weeks.
December 28th, 2009 at 1:35 pm (#)
“short emails become meaningless noise in Congressional offices.”
My understanding is that this is already true, and has been true for a long time (basically as soon as email spam was invented).
“we probably need a better name for this phenomenon than ubiquitous human computing. Any ideas”
I thought “ubiquitous human computing” was JZ’s way of rebranding the topic so that he could talk about the issues to his target audience without being immediately dismissed out of hand. It’s not like he’s about to embrace a phrase like “digital sharecropping”!
http://www.culturekitchen.com/categories/digital_sharecropping
December 30th, 2009 at 10:19 pm (#)
[...] Dec 30th, 2009 by Jon Stahl Lean Improvement Initiative Without TechnologyProcess improvement first, IT implementation second. Heckyeah!UW Grad Student to Launch New Olympia SiteCitizens of Farmville, petition your (real) representatives! :: The Future of the Internet — ̷… [...]
January 12th, 2010 at 6:01 am (#)
…making it easy for already-concerned citizens to contact their reps is okay, but giving some external reward to people who may be totally disinterested is not. These fine lines will become important…
One instance where we seem to come CLOSE to agreeing, is that “these fine lines” are ALREADY important.
Yours’, at least in this instance seems to preclude, also at least in this instance, that it is not feasible the “already-concerned citizens” of which you speak, might not actually agree with the message that they are CHOOSING of their own free will, to both disseminate, AND profit from.
It seems as if you address humanity as entirely devoid of the capacity to reason from a moral base, and further considering the invariable fallout of their correlated decision making; as if the choice between making a decision between the same ends, somehow nullifies it’s effects, owing to the prospect of more immediate and shared agendas, whether they be financial or otherwise.
This is not to say I would accuse you, or any reasonable person of circling Kantian ideals 24/7. (Which is also to say, one post does not a lifetime projection, and or personal historical thesis make)
Perhaps this is all just a metaphorical knee-jerk reaction to the circumstances surrounding the structure, instead of the structure itself. I have no desire to pretend to be beyond the grasp of politicking, and thus, have no intention of taking anyone to task on such a matter, if that should be the case.
Though it does seem reasonable to me to bring to bear that the circumstance behind an employer harassing it’s employees whether through a third party, or not, seems as if altogether different than presenting an opportunity to tie personal advancement, and political choice, in conjunction with a semi-mindless game; no matter the political ends; the former seems at least to me to smack of coercion; no pun intended.
You might do well to consider that it is also not outside the realm of possibility that such a “platform” could be utilized for political agendas that you might find less obnoxious, assumptions provided. Personally, (why not) I wouldn’t mind throwing in my hat to see the Farmville platform utilized to encourage legislators, via their constituents, to instigate more sustainable agricultural practices, such as no till farming, more efficient water usage, etc., however, as noted in previous comments, and from personal experience, such means of communicating with politicians is not as effective as other means of influence. This is not to say that such a scenario still might have some purpose in educating though.
Finally, at least SOME offering is being made to compensate people for their time. It’s not as if the circumstance will mean, even if the sole purpose for doing said work is financial gain, that the intended prospect(s) will march off to save the Union, as was the case during what some still call the Civil War, or laboring for pennies on the dollar, as with Amazon Turk. (Then again, as one of my Professors who helped broker one of the Nike deals in Indonesia reported to us, “Hey, wait a minute, lines for those jobs were out, the door, down the street, and around the block; Nike was paying 50 times more than was possible to secure employment elsewhere with the same skill set, if jobs in that region could be secured at all; even if it wasn’t near enough to keep a senior citizen here in cat food)
This seems to be the point where our “liberal sensitivities,” assumptions further provided, begin to fall sway, and the winks and the nods start rolling out; a bit like watching a women’s studies major attempt to shift from invoking Rawls to a good Ronald Reagan impression, when the subject of pornography, and or prostitution comes up; but I fear digression.
After some consideration, and on to perhaps what is a slice of the bigger picture, maybe what is truly scary about digital sharecropping, and the like, is precisely that said “volunteers,” are not at their corporeal wits end. It would be one thing to rationalize the process as an attempt to seek a reputation for excellence in a chosen field, but that doesn’t explain, day in, day out, dedication. Perhaps it’s the day in day out toil to contribute toward an end that is managed in terms of social recognition, for fear of the masses getting wind of their worth, and the extent to which, they are not being proportionately financially rewarded, combined with a cleverly inculcated fear of risk AND profit, that has so many people striving to not think of at least some portion of their activity as immediately serving other’s gains; i.e., it feels free, ergo, it must be.
January 12th, 2010 at 6:14 am (#)
Note to Self: 3 AM blog responses might be hazardous to thine writing.
I had meant to say as the last sentence to the eighth paragraph words to the effect of: “…might not still have some purpose in educating though”
Instead of what I did.
Apologies for any confusion.
And yes, I was alluding to “people’s” jobs in the final paragraph.
Cheers-
January 14th, 2010 at 8:49 pm (#)
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