Author: Hans de Zwart

Paleizen voor het volk, plekken voor iedereen

De Schots-Amerikaanse Andrew Carnegie opereerde eind negentiende eeuw als een soort proto-Bill Gates: obsceen rijk worden als meedogenloze kapitalist, om dat geld vervolgens uit te geven aan maatschappelijke projecten die je belangrijk vindt. In het geval van Carnegie waren dat duizenden grote bibliotheken. Hij noemde ze paleizen voor het volk.

Nu, ruim honderd jaar later, staat het merendeel van die bibliotheken er nog steeds, en creëren ze een unieke vorm van publieke ruimte. De bibliotheek is de enige plek waar iedereen naar binnen mag zonder iets te hoeven kopen. Een oase in de consumptiemaatschappij.

Bibliotheken zijn geliefd. Lale Gül beschrijft in haar bestseller Ik ga leven hoe de bieb een wereld voor haar opende: “Een schat aan spannende verhalen, de Donald Duck, computers met internetverbinding, dvd’s, een chocomelkapparaat, en dat geheel en al gratis.” Voor rapper en schrijver Massih Hutak is de bibliotheek een vrijplaats waar hij leerde piano spelen, zijn eerste verhalen schreef en stiekem schuifelde met een meisje in één van de vergaderzalen: “School, straat, hiphop, literatuur, religie, kunst, liefde en Amsterdam kwamen voor mij allemaal samen in de bieb. Een plek waar je veilig kon verdwalen.”

Die universele liefde voor de bibliotheek gaat bizar genoeg gepaard met een universele politieke ambitie om de bibliotheek weg te bezuinigen. Recent nog werden in Amsterdam vier locaties bedreigd met sluiting door een vermindering van het budget met anderhalf miljoen. We lijken collectief niet te begrijpen waar bibliotheken voor nodig zijn en welke functie ze vervullen.

De Amerikaanse auteur Eric Klinenberg weet dat wel. In 1995 deed hij onderzoek naar een dodelijke hittegolf in Chicago. Tussen buurten die demografisch en economisch identiek aan elkaar waren bleken toch grote verschillen te zitten in de sterftecijfers naar aanleiding van het extreem warme weer. Hij ontdekte dat de buurten waar minder mensen waren overleden, de buurten waren met meer sociale infrastructuur. Sociale infrastructuur zijn de fysieke omstandigheden die ervoor zorgen dat mensen sterke en wederzijds ondersteunende relaties met elkaar opbouwen. Dit soort infrastructuur is een noodzakelijke voorwaarde voor het bouwen van sociaal kapitaal. En laten bibliotheken daar nou het best mogelijke en tegelijkertijd meest onderschatte voorbeeld van zijn. We zijn ons er blijkbaar onvoldoende van bewust hoe onze omgeving ons sociale gedrag beïnvloed.

Dat gebrek aan besef wordt extra pijnlijk in de digitale ruimte. Iedereen snapt inmiddels dat Instagram, YouTube en TikTok geen infrastructuur zijn voor het vergroten van sociaal kapitaal. Het zijn surveillance- en advertentiemachines, gerund door hedendaagse Carnegies. Nagenoeg zonder na te denken over de consequenties laten we winstbeluste Amerikaanse en Chinese techbedrijven bepalen hoe we ons tot elkaar moeten verhouden en hoe we ons in onze informatiebehoefte moeten voorzien. Zij hebben het alleenrecht om te besluiten over wie er mee mag doen en wat er te zien is. Ze radicaliseren in plaats van dat ze socialiseren.

Stel je voor dat we zouden besluiten om te investeren in een digitale sociale infrastructuur. En dat we ons daarbij laten inspireren door de bibliotheek. Dan zouden we digitale publieke plekken krijgen, waar iedereen welkom is en die actief zo toegankelijk mogelijk worden gemaakt. Je zou er volledig anoniem aan deel kunnen nemen, zonder dat er wat van je wordt verwacht. Je zou er informatie kunnen vinden die tegendraads is of in jouw directe omgeving wellicht zelfs taboe is (“a truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone” zei bibliothecaris Jo Godwin ooit). En er zouden allerlei gratis en inclusieve activiteiten worden georganiseerd om mensen met elkaar te verbinden. We zouden daar toegang kunnen hebben tot ons gedeelde erfgoed en zo onze gedeelde cultuur kunnen vormgeven. En het digitale gereedschap zou ons uiteraard helpen om elkaar in de fysieke wereld te ontmoeten. Misschien wel bij de bibliotheek.

Laten we dit soort digitale publieke plekken zo snel mogelijk gaan bouwen. En deze keer zonder filantropen als Carnegie, maar gewoon met publieke middelen.

Eric Klinenberg schreef het boek Palaces for the People. Zijn boek wordt behandeld in een aflevering van de podcast 99% Invisible. Massih Hutak publiceerde zijn ode aan de OBA in het Parool. Een recent voorbeeld van voorgenomen bezuinigingen op bibliotheken – met mogelijke sluitingen tot gevolg – vind je hier. De Brooklyn Public Library legt in deze podcast uit hoe bibliotheken strijden tegen censuur. De Waag heeft een eerste aanzet gedaan voor de public stack, richting open, democratische en duurzame digitale publieke ruimtes. Als de OBA ooit een nieuwe directeur zoekt, dan sta ik klaar.

Deze column verscheen eerder bij Pakhuis de Zwijger als onderdeel van hun Nieuw Amsterdam Manifest 2022-2030. Foto door Schwede66 met een CC-BY-SA licentie.

The Books I Read in 2021

Covers for all the books that I've read in 2021

At the end of each year, I list the books that I have read during that year. Earlier years were 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012. Below, you will find the list of books that I’ve read in 2021. Every year I also include an overview of my other media consumption habits (magazines, RSS feeds and podcasts).

This year, I only managed to 38 books for a total of 7.660 pages. This is about half as much as last year.

Close to 30% of the books that I’ve read were written by women. About a third of the books that I’ve read had authors that were born in the US or the UK, a third were from Dutch writers, and a third came from the rest of the world.

I’ve ordered the list of books into categories that make sense to me (and that are in many ways overlapping and arbitrary). These are the books that I’ve read and what I thought of some of them:

Digital rights and technology

Bowles has written the book that I wish I had written myself. It is very short, but manages to frame the most important ethical issues around (the design of) technology in a brilliant way. McLuhan was extremely entertaining and insightful as per usual. The other three titles each taught me worthwhile lessons about how to develop technology in an ethical manner.

  • Cennydd Bowles — Future Ethics (link)
  • Marshall Mcluhan — Counterblast (link)
  • Sasha Costanza-Chock — Design Justice (link)
  • Michael Kearns and Aaron Roth — The Ethical Algorithm: The Science of Socially Aware Algorithm Design (link)
  • Eva PenzeyMoog — Design for Safety (link)

B00k C7ub 4 N3rd$

The book club read seven books this year. Stanley Robinson’s book led to the most discussion (and included some unforgettable harrowing scenes about climate change), and Xiawei’s was the most idiosyncratic, teaching us about how China is using technology to keep its countryside (culturally and economically) connected to the rest of the country. Tufekci’s book is worth spending your time on to understand how technology changes protest and activism, even though we are now a decade after the Arab spring. Wiener is a brilliant writer and Hoepman has written a book about the technology behind privacy that every tech policy maker should read.

  • Kim Stanley Robinson — The Ministry for the Future (link)
  • Xiaowei Wang — Blockchain Chicken Farm (link)
  • Zeynep Tufekci — Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest (link)
  • Anna Wiener — Uncanny Valley: A Memoir (link)
  • Jaap-Henk Hoepman — Privacy Is Hard and Seven Other Myths (link)
  • Kate Crawford — The Atlas of AI (link)
  • Mariana Mazzucato — Mission Economy (link)

Improving my game skills

I played a lot a games this year. I had read Lugo before, and doubt there is a better book about partner dominoes. Olsen’s book about backgammon really improved my game. It is great for beginners, but will also satisfy the most competitive of players. Dee’s book about one of my new favorite games (Hive) was a sweet and short introduction, but if you enjoy the game you should really go for Ingersoll’s Play Hive Like a Champion instead.

  • Miguel Lugo — How to Play Better Dominoes (link)
  • Marc Brockmann Olsen — Backgammon (link)
  • Steve Dee — The Book of Hive: Strategy, Tips and Tactics (link)

Fiction

The fiction with the most impact on my thinking about the world were the books by Balci and Gül. Both of them showed – each in their own way – the stifling conditions that exist for many people living in or around Muslim communities here in the Netherlands. They have fundamentally shifted my perspective. It was great to reread the mysterious Chimo’s Zei Lila after many years. Chimo’s follow-up book is less interesting unfortunately. Den Ouden wrote a funny Roman à clef about being a project manager at the institution for higher education where I work (think the worst of bureaucracy, combined with a satire of agile software development, and an attack on diversity thinking). The most overrated book in the Netherlands in 2021 must be Lakmaker’s, whereas Coelho’s is probably the most globally overrated book of all time.

  • Chimo — Zei Lila (link)
  • Erdal Balci — De gevangenisjaren (link)
  • Lale Gül — Ik ga leven (link)
  • Chimo — Ik ben bang (link)
  • René den Ouden — De projectleider (link)
  • Tobi Lakmaker — De geschiedenis van mijn seksualiteit (link)
  • Paulo Coelho — The Alchemist (link)

Children’s books

Joke van Leeuwen will always be my favorite children’s book author. It is my ambition to read all of her work, so I’ve added three of her books to my list and enjoyed them thoroughly. Dahl’s book was a perfect as I remembered. And Van Lieshout has written (and designed) a beautiful young adult book about (the meaning of) art.

  • Roald Dahl — De reuzenkrokodil (link)
  • Joke van Leeuwen — Ergens (link)
  • Joke van Leeuwen — Waarom lig jij in mijn bedje? (link)
  • Joke van Leeuwen — Tijgerlezen – Fien wil een flus (link)
  • Ted van Lieshout — Wat is kunst? (link)

Non-fiction

The most special book I’ve read this year is Angelo’s. It is a mind-blowing exposé of the ingenious material objects that prisoners make in the US prison system. De Bono gave me some more thinking tools, these ‘shoes’ are good, but not as useful as the ‘hats’. De Dijn wrote a discerning history of our political ideas of the concept of freedom (if you are interested in this topic, I think Pettit will give you more actionable insights). Levine and Heller should be required reading for anybody with attachment problems in (love) relationships. Tanizaki is a beautiful ode to darkness, and Jansen gave me a very real and personal history of the beginnings of our welfare state. I found Gunster’s book about ‘omdenken’ to be an insult to my intelligence.

  • Angelo — Prisoners’ Inventions (link)
  • Edward de Bono — Six Action Shoes (link)
  • Annelien De Dijn — Freedom: An Unruly History (link)
  • Asis Aynan — Eén erwt maakt nog geen snert (link)
  • Hafid Bouazza — De akker en de mantel (link)
  • Amir Levine and Rachel S.F. Heller — Attached (link)
  • Junichiro Tanizaki — In Praise of Shadows (link)
  • Suzanne Jansen — Het pauperparadijs (link)
  • Simon Pridmore — Scuba Confidential: An Insider’s Guide to Becoming a Better Diver (link)
  • Henno Eggenkamp — De verguisde stad (link)
  • Berthold Gunster — Ja-maar… Omdenken (link)

My consumption of other media

I decided early in the year that I wanted to financially support journalism. So next to my existing Wired, Economist (reading their daily Espresso update), and New York Review of Books subscriptions, I also subscribed to De Groene Amsterdammer, De Correspondent (now turned into a lifelong subscription due to my volunteering as a board member for the Correspondent Foundation), Follow the Money, Vrij Nederland, and OneWorld. This is one of the reasons why I read less books: too much reading of long form journalism. I switched from the NRC to Parool as my daily newspaper, mainly because I enjoy reading about what is happening in my city of Amsterdam.

I strongly prefer to keep up to date through RSS instead of through email newsletters. But I can’t escape email fully and read the newsletters I get from Rick Pastoor (about productivity), Dipsaus, Audrey Watters (who has stopped writing for the most part), and the local neighbourhood I live in. Every morning I get the newsletter aimed at journalists from the ANP press service, giving me an update about what has happened and what will happen during the day. My favourite curators still are Cory Doctorow and Stephen Downes. Both provide me daily with interesting links (thankfully via RSS).

Authors I follow via RSS include Kashmir Hill, Zeynep Tufekci, Bert Hubert (for his Covid updates), Evgeny Morozov, Jaap-Henk Hoepman, Karin Spaink, Ben Thompson, Linda Duits, Maciej Cegłowski, Ian Bogost, Matt Taibi (only his free posts), Harold Jarche, Rineke van Daalen, Wilfred Rubens, Aral Balkan, Cennydd Bowles, James Bridle, Ernst-Jan Pfauth, Axel Arnbak, Matthew Green, Yasmin Nair, and Bruce Schneier. Organizations and blogs I follow include Colossal, The Hmm, Bits of Freedom, EDRi, Digital Freedom Fund, Controle Alt Delete, Bij Nader Inzien, XKCD, EFF, The Markup, The Black Archives, Stop Blackface, and Stichting Nederland Wordt Beter. I keep up to date with technology news through Guardian Tech, MIT Technology Review, and Tweakers. For fun, I enjoy the Reddit on The Big Lebowski. The only two Twitter accounts that I check regularly are the ones from Alexander Klöpping and Nadia Ezzeroili. And finally, the most valuable new edition to my RSS diet is the news from Rest of World.

Using Pocket Cast, I still listen to all new episodes of This American Life, Een Podcast over Media, Radio Rechtsstaat, and Replay-All. New on the list of must-listens are Napleiten and the Rudi en Freddie Show (I enjoyed the shows without Rutger Bregman the most). I listen to the majority of episodes from 99% Invisible, Cautionary Tales, Cyberhelden, Lex Bohlmeier’s interviews for De Correspondent, and In Machines We Trust. When an episode looks appealing I will listen to Dipsaus, The Ezra Klein Show, Freakonomics, Philosophy Books, Philosophical Disquisitions, The Nextcloud podcast, Philosophy 24/7, Philosophy Bites, Planet Money, RadioLab, The Tim Ferris Show, and Where Should We Begin by Esther Perel. This means that This Week in Tech has dropped off the list after many years of loyal listening.

There were a few one-off podcasting series that I listened to this year. The first few episodes of Bits of Freedom’s Big Brother Awards podcast of course, De Dienst (about the Dutch secret service, it mostly made me very angry), The Noord Face, Stuff the British Stole, and Sudhir Breaks the Internet.

What will I be reading in 2022?

My reading plans for 2021 did not come to pass for the most part. I did manage to read a bit about data/AI/technology ethics, but I only enlarged my list of half-read books instead of reducing it, and didn’t read any Toni Morrison nor did I get to Piketty or Kelton. Those latter two are still high on my list. I also want to make sure to read another McLuhan book.

Other than that, I am hoping to read a bit more fiction this year. Hopefully my personal rule of only bringing fiction on my holidays should help with that goal.

Update (10 January 2022): I like recommendations, and especially if they are done by a human being or are if they are not algorithmically personalized towards me. One of the best recommendation engines are (literary) awards of course. I have therefore created my own personal recommendation algorithm using awards as a guide. So this coming year I will challenge myself to read the following:

  • All Booker Prize shortlisted books of the previous year.
  • The winner of the Booker Prize of a random previous year (only books that I haven’t read yet).
  • The winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction of the previous year.
  • The winner of the International Booker Prize of the previous year.
  • The winner of the Libris Literatuur Prijs of the previous year.
  • A book of choice by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature of the previous year.
  • A book of choice by the winner of the P.C. Hooft-prijs of the current year.
  • The winner of the Pullitzer Prize for Fiction of the previous year.
  • The winner of the Royal Society Science Books Prize of the previous year.
  • The winner of the Socratesbeker of the previous year.
  • The winner of the Boekenbon Literatuurprijs of the previous year.
  • The winner of the Gouden Griffel of the previous year.
  • The winner of the Bronzen Uil of the previous year.

If there are no double winners/nominations, then this will be a list of eighteen books to read, most of which will be fiction. The list is very biased towards current and new books (which the Lindy Effect tells us, isn’t necessarily a smart idea). I am still thinking of ways to engineer reading more great books that are a bit older.

The Books I Read in 2020

Covers of the books I read in 2020

At the end of each year, I list the books that I have read during that year. Earlier years were 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012. Below, you will find the list of books that I’ve read in 2020. Every year I also include an overview of my other media consumption habits (magazines, RSS feeds and podcasts).

This year, I managed to accomplish my goal of reading one book per week. I read 53 books for a total of 14.241 pages. That is around 35% more than last year.

Once again, only about 25% of the books that I’ve read were written by women. This is what seems to happen when I just follow my interests. About half the books that I’ve read had authors that were born in the US or the UK, close to 20% were from Dutch writers, and only just over 30% came from the rest of the world.

I’ve ordered the list of books into categories that make sense to me (and that are in many ways overlapping and arbitrary). These are the books that I’ve read and what I thought of some of them:

Digital rights and technology

Doctorow’s insanely prodigious mind has produced a wonderfully smart screed against surveillance capitalism. Rasch has written a nearly poetic book about our technological predicament, and Ten Oever has shown that you can write a PhD thesis that is worth reading.

  • Cory Doctorow — How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism (link)
  • Jessica Rijnboutt, Marcel Heerink and Pim Kruijt — Ethiek in ICT en techniek (link)
  • Miriam Rasch — Frictie (link)
  • Niels ten Oever — Wired Norms: Inscription, resistance, and subversion in the governance of the Internet infrastructure (link)
  • Richard A. Spinello — Cyberethics (link)

B00k C7ub 4 N3rd$

It was a very slow year for the book club. Žižek had a few key insights about the pandemic, but was mostly rambling otherwise. Arora showed a different perspective on the tech world and provided a solid critique of solutionist and techno-utopian thinking. Ball and Greenberg have both written books that are excellent for a laypersons audience, but that were slightly too familiar for my taste.

  • Andy Greenberg — Sandworm (link)
  • James Ball — The System (link)
  • Payal Arora — The Next Billion Users (link)
  • Slavoj Žižek — PANDEMIC! COVID-19 Shakes the World (link)

Sailing and the sea

While sailing across the Southern Atlantic, I naturally was interested in books about sailing and the sea. Rousmaniere’s book is an utterly complete and practical book about all aspects of sailing. Urbina’s reporting from the extreme edges of the lawless oceans was impressive, and Moitessier reported on how he sailed around the globe in a time before GPS and satellite phone.

  • Ian Urbina — The Outlaw Ocean (link)
  • John Rousmaniere — The Annapolis Book of Seamanship (link)
  • Bernard Moitessier — The Long Way (link)

I enjoy reading about the countries I am visiting while I am in them. So that meant a lot of reading about Brazil. I loved Holston’s critique of Brasília, thoroughly enjoyed Grann’s search for the hidden gold in the Amazon, and learned a lot about Brazil’s culture, economy and politics from Rohter. Baker’s book about St. Helena was unique (like the island itself), and Suzman showed how the indigenous people of Namibia managed to sustain themselves on 15 hours of work a week.

  • David Grann — The Lost City of Z (link)
  • Ian Baker — St Helena: One Man’s Island (link)
  • James Holston — The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasília (link)
  • James Suzman — Affluence Without Abundance (link)
  • Larry Rohter — Brazil on the Rise (link)
  • Timothy A. Kerner — Biking São Paulo (link)
  • Oscar Niemeyer — My Architecture (link)
  • Tristan Gooley — The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs (link)

The Pandemic

When COVID-19 hit I too felt the urge to learn about pandemics. I thought Barry’s book would help me understand what a pandemic does to society (it didn’t, it mostly explained what a struggle it was to get any sort of understanding about influenza). However, Giordano managed to write a short and quite insightful essay about the current pandemic.

  • Paolo Giordano — In tijden van besmetting (link)
  • John M. Barry — The Great Influenza (link)

Autobiography and the black experience

All of the following authors have used their personal experiences as a way to tell a larger story about race in their respective societies. These were some of the most impactful books I’ve read for the year. De Kom is a timeless classic, Gargard and Çankaya were both brutally honest, and therefore often quite painful to read. And Noah’s book is absolutely brilliant in how it balances between being funny and absolutely true.

  • Anton de Kom — Wij slaven van Suriname (link)
  • Clarice M.D. Gargard — Drakendochter (link)
  • Trevor Noah — Born a crime (link)
  • Sinan Çankaya — Mijn ontelbare identiteiten (link)

Programming and design

My PHP programming skills were about 15 years old and showed their age (basically I was still solving problems the old school way). Butler and Yank single-handedly managed to upgrade my skills to a 2015 level or so, allowing me to make a search engine for The Big Lebowski quotes.

  • Tom Butler and Kevin Yank — PHP & MySQL: Novice to Ninja (link)
  • Bruno Škvorc — Jump Start PHP Environment (link)
  • Erika Hall — Just Enough Research (link)

Fiction

As ever, the amount of fiction I’ve read in no way reflects the enjoyment I get out of it. Amado’s book reminded me of the joy I once had reading ‘A House for Mr. Biswas’ by Naipaul. It has the same type of light and witty tone, while sharply critiquing society. Evaristo has written a beautiful book about the black female experience in the UK of today, while Emezi has written a pretty disturbing book about trauma. Choukri’s book is a haunting account about growing up poor in post-war North Morocco. After reading Tokarczuk, I now understand why she received the Nobel Prize for literature.

  • Jorge Amado — Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (link)
  • Bernardine Evaristo — Girl, woman, other (link)
  • Mohamed Choukri — Hongerjaren (link)
  • Akwaeke Emezi — Freshwater (link)
  • Olga Tokarczuk — Flights (link)
  • Kiley Reid — Such a Fun Age (link)
  • Barry Smit — De zaak-Mulder (link)
  • Hannah van Wieringen — All Over – acts of love (link)

Non-fiction

There was a lot to like in this category. If you ever wanted to learn how to cook then I can’t recommend Nosrat’s book highly enough (so much richer than her four episodes on Netflix). Pollan is probably my favourite non-fiction writer and his book about psychedelics was a treat. My ‘strijder’ Massih Hutak has written a full frontal and heartfelt attack on the gentrification of his beloved Amsterdam Noord. Kaner, Lind, Toldi, Fisk and Berger’s guide to facilitation is a must-have for anybody who works with groups of people towards a common goal. Rueb’s retelling of the story of a young girl who traveled to the caliphate and managed to escape was magistral. Tooze’s history of the 2008 economic crash taught me a lot about global finance and Malik has provided me with a global perspective on ethics. Brown has written an accessible guide to Stoic thinking and Perel’s book is an interesting take on relationships.

  • Samin Nosrat — Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat (link)
  • Michael Pollan — How to Change Your Mind (link)
  • Massih Hutak — Jij hebt ons niet ontdekt, wij waren hier altijd al (link)
  • Sam Kaner and Lenny Lind, Catherine Toldi, Sarah Fisk, and Duane Berger — Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making (link)
  • Thomas Rueb — Laura H. (link)
  • Adam Tooze — Crashed (link)
  • Kenan Malik — The Quest for a Moral Compass (link)
  • Alexander Wolff — The Audacity of Hoop (link)
  • Derren Brown — Happy (link)
  • Esther Perel — Mating in Captivity (link)
  • Nadia Benaissa — Liefdeswetten (link)
  • Scott Berkun — The Year Without Pants (link)
  • Shell International B.V. — Scenarios: An Explorer’s Guide (link)
  • David J Schwartz — The Magic of Thinking Big (link)
  • Linda de Greef and Ger Post, Christianne Vink, Lucy Wenting — Designing Interdisciplinary Education (link)

My consumption of other media

Due to the pandemic, I felt a high need for keeping up to date with the news. I therefore subscribed to the digital edition of the NRC and read it quite religiously up until about October. I was also subscribed to The Economist (mostly for their daily ‘Espresso’ update), the New York Review of Books, WIRED (digital only), and De Correspondent. I’ve newly subscribed to Logic, and am trying to find the time to read their in-depth pieces on technology.

I strongly prefer to keep up to date through RSS instead of through email newsletters. But I can’t escape email fully and read the newsletters I get from Rick Pastoor (about productivity), Dipsaus, Audrey Watters, and the local neighbourhood I live in. My favourite curators still are Cory Doctorow and Stephen Downes. Both provide me daily with interesting links (thankfully via RSS).

Authors I follow via RSS include Kashmir Hill, Zeynep Tufekci, Evgeny Morozov, Jaap-Henk Hoepman, Karin Spaink, Ben Thompson, Linda Duits, Maciej Cegłowski, Ian Bogost, Matt Taibi (only his free posts), Harold Jarche, Wilfred Rubens, Aral Balkan, Axel Arnbak, Matthew Green, and Bruce Schneier. Organizations and blogs I follow include Colossal, The Hmm, Bits of Freedom, EDRi, Controle Alt Delete, Bij Nader Inzien, XKCD, EFF, The Markup, The Intercept, The Black Archives, Stop Blackface, and Stichting Nederland Wordt Beter. I keep up to date with technology news through Guardian Tech and Tweakers.

My podcasting playlist has not changed much this year. I still listen to all new episodes of This American Life, Een Podcast over Media, This Week in Tech, Cautionary Tales, Dipsaus, Ear Hustle, Strangers (the free episodes only), Radio Rechtsstaat, Reply-all, and (new this year) Esther Perel’s Where Should We Begin. When an episode looks interesting I will listen to Code Switch, De Correspondent, Freakonomics, Intercepted, Glitch, Nextcloud Podcast, Philosophy 24/7, Philosophic Disquisitions, Philosophy Bites, Planet Money, RadioLab, The Tim Ferriss Show, and Your Undivided Attention. My friend Inge Wannet created a short and initially daily COVID-19 related theatrical podcast called Binnenwerkjes, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And I still love 99% Invisible, but am running at least 8 months behind.

There were quite a few one-off podcasting series that I listened to this year: I finally managed to get to the first season of Serial, I thought that De plantage van onze voorouders was incredibly well done, listened to The Missing Crypto Queen in one go, and similarly to De laatste dans. The Scaredy Cats Horror Show made laugh, while Nice White Parents and Kleine jongens steken niet were two very insightful pieces of journalistic work. Finally, I still have some episodes of Together Apart to go.

What will I be reading in 2021?

As I write this, I have currently started 18 books that I’ve yet to finish. I am hoping I will finish at least a few of those in the next couple of months. I don’t have a lot of reading intent for the coming year. I want to read at least two books by Toni Morrison, and I will likely read quite a lot of books about data/AI/technology ethics and about the relationship between technology and racism. Finally, I am hoping to up-skill my thinking on economics through reading Piketty’s Capital and Ideology and Kelton’s The Deficit Myth.

Wees niet bang om je account te deleten als social media je een eikel maakt

Op 6 januari 2019 ben ik voorgoed gestopt met Twitter. Dat was niet alleen maar omdat ik er genoeg van had om als brandstof te dienen voor een surveillance kapitalistisch verdienmodel. Nee, ik vond vooral dat ik moest stoppen met Twitter omdat het platform de allerslechtste kant van mezelf naar boven bracht. Ik ben doorgaans een hele rustige jongen. De mensen die mij boos hebben gezien zijn op één hand te tellen. Mijn bijnaam is “natural born buddha”. Mindfulness komt me aangewaaid. Maar het lukte Twitter keer op keer om een soort woede-machine van me te maken.

Het verliep altijd volgens hetzelfde patroon: Bits of Freedom – de stichting waar ik op dat moment directeur van was – plaatste een tweet met een kritisch perspectief op technologie in de context van mensenrechten. Vervolgens kwam er dan een willekeurige trol langs die zijn (yup, het waren altijd mannen) ongefundeerde en vaak onzinnige mening als antwoord op onze tweet gaf. Omdat dit antwoord nu direct onder onze tweet stond, en ook nog eens voor al onze volgers zichtbaar was, voelde me ik me genoodzaakt om deze spuit elf van repliek te dienen. Ik wilde hem dan in 280 tekens het liefst helemaal kapot schrijven. Mijn collega’s keken me daarna soms wat meewarig aan. Ging het wel goed met me? Dat had die persoon nou ook weer niet verdiend toch?

Deze dynamiek was me natuurlijk al wel opgevallen. En ik had ook allang begrepen dat de op viraliteit gerichte ontwerpkeuzes van Twitter – de retweet optie, de beperkte hoeveelheid tekens per tweet, het gebrek aan gemeenschap en aan context, en de mogelijkheid om elke tweet te zien en daarop te antwoorden – mijn onprettige gedrag in de hand werkte. Maar pas na het lezen van Jaron Lanier’s Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now had ik de juiste woorden voor dit probleem. In dat boek is hij duidelijk: “social media is making you into an asshole”.

Lanier heeft een vermoeden over waarom je van sociale media een klootzak wordt. Hij is ervan overtuigd dat we diep in onze menselijke persoonlijkheid een schakelaar hebben die in twee standen kan staan. We lijken daarin op wolven: we kunnen in een solitaire stand of in een roedel stand. In de solitaire stand zijn we vrijer. We moeten wel iets voorzichtiger zijn, maar kunnen in deze stand voor onszelf denken, improviseren en mooie dingen maken. Op ‘standje roedel’ raken we volgens hem geobsedeerd door hiërarchie en de pikorde. We trappen omlaag en likken omhoog. We zien anderen niet meer als individu maar delen ze op in twee groepen: vriend of vijand. Groepsdenken ligt op de loer. En daarmee dus gedrag dat je alleen zult vertonen als je je gesterkt voelt door die groep van gelijkgestemden.

Die roedel stand is funest voor de publieke sfeer. Autoritair denken is bijvoorbeeld geworteld in de roedel. Collectieve processen, zoals onze democratie, werken paradoxaal genoeg het beste als iedereen als individu voor zichzelf denkt, in de solitaire stand dus. Volgens Lanier zetten sociale media platforms zoals Twitter, Facebook, Instagram en YouTube onze schakelaar in de roedel stand. Dit komt volgens hem omdat die platforms ons totaal op elkaar gericht maken in plaats van dat we als individu geconfronteerd worden met een realiteit die groter is dan onszelf.

Al deze platforms kapitaliseren onze beperkte aandacht. Ze verdienen meer geld naarmate we meer tijd bij ze besteden. En dat hoeft helaas geen quality time te zijn. Hun maatstaf voor succes is nooit de mate waarin ze de publieke sfeer gezond houden. Nee, hun growth hackers zijn echt alleen maar geïnteresseerd in meer gebruikers die langer blijven plakken.

Voor dit soort platforms is het feit dat Twitter-president Trump eigenhandig haatvolle online discussies weet te scheppen, dat meer Facebook gebruik leidt tot meer vreemdelingenhaat, of dat er onder een Facebook livestream van een protest tegen Zwarte Piet duizenden afgrijselijke racistische en seksistische reacties worden geplaatst, niets anders dan de collateral damage van hun ambitie om ongeacht de maatschappelijke consequenties zo snel mogelijk zo veel mogelijk geld te verdienen. Online haat is daarmee dus één van de onvermijdelijke uitkomsten van hoe we op dit moment ons informatie-ecosysteem ingericht hebben.

Dit hoeft niet zo te zijn. Het is wel degelijk mogelijk om platforms te ontwerpen waarin de gebruikers niet in de roedel stand gezet worden en waar we wel op een duurzame manier kennis met elkaar kunnen delen, elkaar kunnen steunen, en zelfs een gezonde politiek kunnen bedrijven. Maar dan moeten we die platforms wel zo ontwerpen dat ze succesvoller zijn naarmate ze ons beter mensen maken.

Voor nu kun jij alvast het advies van Lanier opvolgen: als je een nare kant van jezelf ontdekt bij het gebruik van een online platform, als je er onzeker van wordt, of als je merkt dat je iemand neer wilt halen, dan is vertrekken bij het platform eigenlijk de enige verstandige optie. Dat heb ik begin 2019 dus bij Twitter gedaan. Ik ben er oprecht een beter mens van geworden.

Dit artikel verscheen voor het eerst op 4 november 2020 bij Lilith.

How The Dude Was Duped By Big Tech

A website with The Big Lebowski quotes was blocked for no reason by Facebook. Looking for justice at a tech company that has automated the enforcement of its rules. Written by Reinier Kist.

Cult film The Big Lebowski (1998, directed by the Coen Brothers) tells the story of The Dude: a former hippie minding his own business, who falls prey to powers that are bigger than himself. The Dude happily fills his days bowling, smoking joints, bathing and drinking White Russians. But the easy life of this Californian Oblomov — on flip flops, wearing a bath robe, and brilliantly portrayed by Jeff Bridges — is roughly upended one day when two thugs kick in his door, threaten him, and pee on his rug. That act drags The Dude into a plot full of misunderstandings and colorful characters. An at the end, after his weird adventures, it turns out that all of it — spoiler alert — was for nothing.

This story is not about The Big Lebowski, but about thebiglebow.ski, a search engine for quotes from the film. A film which, more than 20 years after being released, still has a large number of loyal fans. Like The Dude in the film, the website and its founder Hans de Zwart became beholden to bigger powers. And just as in the film, the whole plot turns out to be based on a misunderstanding. But before that becomes clear, De Zwart has to go on a monthslong odyssey full of frustration and wondrous twists and turns.

Abusive?

The story begins when thebiglebow.ski is blocked by Facebook. Hans de Zwart, like The Dude a former activist who is taking it easy, has launched the site in the middle of May. The former director of dutch digital rights organization Bits of Freedom is a fan of The Big Lebowski. He has noticed that there isn’t a good search engine for quotes from the film. “Even though about every single sentence from the script is eminently quotable,” says De Zwart. So he builds the search engine in a week, including the possibility to share the quote on social media.

This is where Facebook says: no. Users who want to share their favorite quotes on the social network get the following message: “Your message couldn’t be sent because it includes content that other people on Facebook have reported as abusive.” Facebook subsidiary Instagram also blocks the site. Who has reported him? And Why? These questions put De Zwart on a search for justice.

All the dude ever wanted… was his rug back…

De Zwart wants to complain to Facebook, but that is only possible if he has a Facebook account. As a digital rights activist he doesn’t participate in social media, mainly because he doesn’t want to add to the surveillance economy. Still, he decides to create an account.

He immediately gets angry at Facebook messing up his name. The company changes his name to ‘Hans De Zwart’, with a capitalized D. A small annoyance, but for De Zwart it signifies something bigger: “It is the arrogance of a giant American corporation which considers the correct spelling of the names of millions of Dutch people an edge case.”

Then it turns out that Facebook doesn’t see De Zwart’s complaint as a complaint, but as an “experience”. The chance that Facebook will look at it is small. At the top of the complaint form is the following message: “While we aren’t able to review individual reports, the feedback you provide will help us improve the ways we keep Facebook safe.” When he hands in his complaint he gets a message: “Thank you for your experience.”

After a few weeks of waiting, it becomes clear to De Zwart that no one at Facebook will look at his complaint. He still has no idea what part of his website is “abusive” and why he is being blocked.

Automated decisions

Facebook and Instagram have grown into essential communication platforms with billions of people sharing information and news. And for many (online) businesses these sites are the only way to reach their customers. That is why it is important that the information on Facebook and its subsidiaries find their way to users in a transparant and honest way. And that there is an equitable complaints procedure for people whose website has been blocked for whatever reason.

The power of the large internet platforms, and the responsibility that comes with that power, was the subject of a historical antitrust hearing at the US House of Representatives this year. Being a digital rights activist, De Zwart knows this discussion very well, so he starts to meticulously log his attempts to get clarity.

Don't run away from this dude! Goddamnit, this affects all of us! Our basic freedoms.

Halfway June, De Zwart tries to buy a Facebook ad for his website. He has read that Facebook might be willing to listen to your complaints if you are spending advertising dollars with the company. He creates a completely innocent advertisement and pays 5 euro to distribute it to the users of the network.

The advert is rejected, “this ad contains or refers to content that has been blocked by our security systems (#1885260)”, notes Facebook. De Zwart has no idea what the error code means and to complain about this, he first needs to agree to four sets of legal terms. Which he does, without reading them. But after reporting the problem, he again gets no indication whether Facebook is planning to do anything with his complaint. “Thanks for helping us improve!” is the happy message from the platform.

Writing in his log book he notes that he now has another problem: “I want my 5 euro back, but I can’t find any way of doing that.”

He thinks about just letting it all go. Of course he doesn’t really care about the 5 euro, it is the principle that matters. All the while he is clicking himself into an RSI injury, trying to keep all the settings on his Facebook account as privacy friendly as possible.

This whole fucking thing—I could be sitting here with just pee-stains on my rug.

Why does he worry himself so much over this? De Zwart sees “the arbitrary (not to say totalitarian) decisions of the company” as a serious limitation on our freedoms, he emails to the author of this article. Especially since so many people have become very dependent on Facebook.

He considers the block to be “ridiculously disproportional”. Pages of the website which evidently don’t violate any of the ‘community standards’ and also don’t have any potential copyright issues, can’t be shared either. De Zwart doesn’t understand why it is completely impossible to get some form of due process at Facebook. He believes that there should be a working complaints procedure for website owners. A procedure that can also be used by people who don’t have a Facebook account.

Prophetic words

“It appears that Facebook will only look at problems if they realize that it might cost them too much political or media capital if they continue to ignore them”, writes De Zwart at the end of his email.

These words turn out to be prophetic. A few days after the author of this article presents the case to a Facebook PR person, the problem is solved. Nobody had reported his website for “abusive” material — just like the film revolves around a kidnapping incident that has never taken place. The website has all this time been incorrectly labelled “by our automated tools” as spam, according to the spokesperson. “Our apologies for the inconvenience.”

Thebiglebow.ski can now be shared without limitations on Facebook: a bittersweet victory. “If this can happen to me, then I should assume that this happens to (tens or hundreds of) thousands of other people too”, according to De Zwart.

The end of the film is similarly bittersweet. The dude has an even nicer rug, but loses a friend. Hans de Zwart still hasn’t gotten his 5 euro back.

This article was written by Reinier Kist and originally appeared in Dutch in NRC on August 3rd, 2020. It was translated into English by Hans de Zwart.