Phil Bradley's weblog

My Library By Right revisted; SCL ducks out

You will of course have seen blogs and tweets and discussions on the the 'My Library by Right' petition. If you haven't signed it yet, please do. It's currently got 11,279 signatures, which while its an improvement on the 6K I ranted about in my last blog post on the subject still isn't every single member of CILIP! It's still fairly feeble in my opinion, but don't worry - for those of you with a nervous disposition I shan't be swearing in this update. 

It's disappointing that the Society of Chief Librarians has failed miserably to support the campaign. I tweeted them a while ago to ask what they were doing, and their response was basically that they hadn't met to talk about it (quite why they can't use email or video conferencing is a bit beyond me, but there you go), and they were going to have to consider it. Well, now they have. On their website, under the title 'SCL's commitment to library services' they say this:

As a body largely comprising representation from local authorities, SCL recognises that it is for individuals and their local authorities to provide local responses to the My Library By Right campaign.

In other words it's a case of 'Not my problem mate, and it's more than my jobs worth'. There's plenty of very pointless fluff surrounding the statement, which when you consider what they are being asked to support is laughably contradictory. Try this paragraph:

For its part, SCL continues its work on an ambitious programme of innovation to further develop and embed the Universal Offers; supporting our workforce to deliver vibrant library services; building national and local partnerships that enable library services to contribute to relevant policy agenda, particularly those around economic development and health and wellbeing and contributing to the evolution of the Libraries Taskforce.

So how are they going to do that when there aren't any libraries left? These are all very grand eloquent words, but they are backed up by nothing at all. They are not even offering a guide to individuals and local authorities - they have simply washed their hands of the whole situation. There's nothing directly linking to the petition on their website, and the only other reference is from the blog of the President, which says this:

I completely understand that some people would have liked SCL to have signed up to CILIP’s My Library By Right campaign but, as our members know, SCL is not, and never has been, a campaigning body as the great majority of us – the Heads of Library Services across the country – are officers in local authorities, many in politically restricted posts.

This is woeful at best. This is only a political campaign in the very broadest of senses, since the focus is on keeping a strong and powerful library service - a 'vibrant library service' in SCL's own words, to contribute to the wellbeing of communities. Local councils of all colours are cutting libraries; if it was just one political party the SCL may have a point, but they don't. They're not even prepared to say 'it's a good idea, and we're entirely behind it, but can't be any more official than that'. They're not being asked to be a campaigning body - no-one is asking them to go out on the streets and man the barricades (just as well really) they are being asked to support people who ARE campaigning.

Librarians, libraries, and communities are being let down by the SCL refusal to support them.  With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Really angry...

I'm usually fairly easy going, and not much gets to me. However, I'm really angry at the moment, so this is your warning; the blog will not be a nice read for some/many.

There's a petition out at the moment, "HM Government: act now to protect my statutory rights to a quality public library service" However, it would seem that most library and information professionals don't give a flying f* about it. 'What's that?' you say 'Of course librarians want to save their library services, not to mention all of the friends groups out there!' You can read more about the petition/campaign over on the CILIP site. The campaign started on December 15th, and to date the petition has 6,133 supporters.

6,133. 

In. a. month.

Some people seem to think that this is rather good, however, I think it's pathetic, derisory and damaging. That's about 230 people a day signing it. CILIP itself has over 13,000 members, and they will all have seen information on the campaign as it has featured heavily in Update. Let's make a wild guess here, and say that each member knows 4 people well enough to get them to sign it. That's 52,000 people, which is half way to getting the thing debated in Parliament. If each of those people who have signed it know another person and can get them to sign it, we're at a reasonable figure.

6,133.

In. a. month.

But apparently not. Apparently not enough people care about their library services to give 5 minutes (or less!) to signing the petition. I apologise to the 6,132 other people who have signed this, because you're excluded. But for the rest of you - what the fuck are you doing? I've got 10,000 people following my Twitter account, and yes, a lot of those are overseas etc, but if each one who could sign the petition did, and encouraged one other person to sign it, that figure would be looking a little bit healthier.

I've taken a look at a few accounts on social media from Friends groups, other librarians, other library groups, special library groups, CILIP groups and so on. Deafening. Seriously, you wouldn't know that there's a problem, let alone that there's a petition that people could sign. Apparently most of you don't give a fuck. THAT's why I'm angry. 

Of course, there are a number of reasons why people have chosen not to sign the petition. Let's take a look at a few of them.

'It's CILIP. Too little, too late'. I get that, but NOT to support a petition to save libraries because CILIP started it is about as pathetic as it gets. Yes, CILIP is late to the party in this respect, though it has done some great stuff with previous campaigns, #Savelibraries and so on. However, it IS doing something now. If you're in that camp (and I can think of at least one high profile group that is) pull your fingers out, grow up and start signing. Get more people to sign it. Not signing isn't telling CILIP what you think of them, it's telling the government that you're quite happy for them to close as many libraries as they want.

'I'm afraid that someone might see that I've put my name to it'. Doesn't work that way, and even if it did, if there are enough signatures yours is going to be lost in the mix. And to be honest, if you are too scared to sign it, then you deserve to see your library closed and your job lost. 

'I don't have time'. 5 minutes or less. Doesn't wash.

'Oh, someone else can do it'. Yeah, and someone else can save your library as well. But what if they don't? What if, as seems likely at the moment, every one is passing the buck? Everyone is expecting someone else to do it, so nothing happens. Which is pretty much the case that we've got here. 

6,133.

In. a. month,

Maybe it's simply not reaching the number of people that it needs to. We ALL need to start sharing details on the petition more than we have, and I'll hold my hand up to this one - I've only done so a few times on Facebook and Twitter, so you're going to be seeing much more of it from me in the future. And I hope that I'll see much more of it from all of you as well! Have YOU shared it? I'm guessing probably not, since I haven't been bored witless yet by seeing references to it. Put it into your own Twitter stream, write about it in your blog, share the hell out of it on Facebook. Thrust it under the face of everyone that you know, march them over to their computer(s) and get them to sign it today. We are an information profession. We should be able to do this stuff without even thinking - it's dead easy.

Having said that, there's been high profile support from authors such as Neil Gaiman, bless his heart. And it's been mentioned in The Bookseller, and in the national press. It's not as though it's an invisible campaign. 

'Bit worried about my employer finding out.' They don't need to know you signed, and besides you should be telling your boss that they bloody well need to be signing it as well. Because at this rate, your boss isn't going to be your boss much longer, they are going to be standing in front of you in the dole queue. 

Can't think of many other reasons right now to be honest - but if there's a good reason why you're not prepared to sign it, do let me know in the comments, because I would love to know.

Why is it important to sign it?

If you choose not to sign it, you're covertly giving the government more permission to close libraries. They look at this petition, Vaizey, Cameron, Whittingdale and the rest of the sorry crew are going to be laughing their socks off. If all we can manage is 6,000 signatures it's basically saying that we don't care. Rather than stopping them in their tracks, it's going to be encouraging them to do even MORE to close libraries because they think they can get away with it. And you know what - they'll probably be right, because if most of you can't be bothered to get up off your backsides and even just sign a petition, you're not likely to do anything else, let's face it. 

So I'm angry, and quite frankly, you should be as well. 6,000 signatures is pathetic. It's making the entire profession look like a laughing stock, and it's giving the government a green light to do whatever they want. And if you're angry, do something about it. Sign the petition. And if you've already signed it, get two more people to sign it. Ask your loved one, your siblings, your parents and your adult children to sign it. If you're cross with me, then show me just how cross you are and tweet a link to the petition. Share it on Facebook. Print copies of the details off and leave them in your staff rooms. Then next week, do it again. And again. Rinse and repeat until we get something that's not quite as pathetic as 6,133 signatures. 

6,133

In. a. month.

For fucks sake.

Edited to add: Apparently my language is 'vile'. Yes, it is. It's because I'm angry, and sometimes language like that makes a very strong point. However, at least one person has it would seem decided not to sign the petition because she doesn't approve of it. I'm not entirely sure how to respond to such a pathetic and infantile approach, but will have a go. If you think my language is worse than 2 libraries closing a week, get over it. If, as it seems is the case, that you're not signing because you want to spite me for my use of language, then you're part of the problem. 

CILIP shows some teeth

I was delighted to see an article in the Guardian today "Librarians take legal battle against library closures to government". It's a report that CILIP is taking a strong and robust line against library closures. Nice fighting talk from Nick Poole, CILIP CEO "“We’ve had enough. We’ve marked our line in the sand here. The government is behaving as if it doesn’t have a duty of care and they do, under the law. We think it’s time to be clear about what that means”" You may recall that I was critical of CILIP's weak statement to the Prime Minister back in November. I said then "We should not stand politely at the door of Number 10 hoping to be noticed by one of the PM's aides. We need to be there hammering on the door, demanding to be let it. If we don't show the passion, if we don't shout louder and louder, if we don't make it clear to our communities that we are fighting for them then we deserve to lose everything we have." so I'm really pleased to see this step being taken. 

There is also a petition that people can sign. I know that petitions have little value, but given that it's only going to take 10 seconds of your time, it's worth doing. It's also worth doing in order to show that you support the action that CILIP is taking here. If I, or anyone else is critical of CILIP it also behooves us to be positive as well. So toddle along and sign it at Change.org. While you're here, it's worth also adding that there will be a lobby of Parliament on Feb. 9th next year, so it's worth making a note in your calendar to that effect. 

Attacks on encryption still on the menu

In the wake of the awful events in Paris there is a renewed interest in trying to attack internet resources that encrypt our conversations. Despite what organisations such as #CILIP would try and have you believe there's still a great appetite to try and stop encryption. In the United States John McCain is keen to introduce legislation that would require companies to provide the government with access to encryption. It's worth saying time and time again that it's technically impossible to provide a back door to encryption that can be used by security services which can't be broken into by crooks. 

Meanwhile back in the UK Boris Johnson is weighing in on the debate. He wants the government to fast track the Investigatory Powers Bill (which isn't going to give people much time to debate and consider the consequences). He also said “I have less and less sympathy with those who oppose the new surveillance powers that the government would like to give the security services.” Basically then, people who support freedom and liberty are being tarred with the same brush as the terrorists who want to destroy it. Laughably, he was also quoted as saying "I would like a better understanding of how so many operatives were able to conspire, and attack multiple locations, without some of their electronic chatter reaching the ears of the police.” He's therefore quite happy to pontificate about the subject without knowing anything at all about it. 

We need to ensure that we keep a close eye on what the government is trying to do, and as information professionals I believe that we have a moral and ethical duty to keep raising the subject as often as necessary.

 

CILIP's weak statement to the Prime Minister

In the wake of the realization that the Prime Minister has no idea what's happening in his own back yard, let alone the rest of the country, CILIP has written to him to develop publicly funded libraries. It's a good time to really push home the message that Cameron doesn't want to hear, which is that the library service is in extreme danger.

However, having read the statement, I have to say that I think it's not going to have the desired effect, not by a long way. You can read the entire thing yourself by following the previous link, but I'll pull out some of the statements in order to examine them in a little more detail. Nick Poole (who I have a huge amount of respect for) says:

"The impact of reductions in centrally-distributed funds to Local Government has already been profound for the Nation’s publicly-funded libraries and is likely to become critical after the Budget statement on the 25th November."

Passive, passive, passive. It WILL become even more critical than it already is. We are already in a situation where hollowed out services give the impression that library services are managing when in actual fact they are being destroyed from the inside out. The Prime Minister needs to understand that a volunteer run library is not a library. He further needs to understand that an attack on a library is a direct attack on the people within the community - the children who need to get their homework done in the library because they don't have one at school - the library as a safe place for people without any where else - the refugees learning English, the unemployed, the people without computer access at home who rely on a library service to give them a window into the world. The Prime Minister needs to be reminded of Birmingham's Central Library, and how that is being damaged so soon after it's opening. The Prime Minister isn't interested 'profound' or 'likely' - he works on extremes. We need to make it crystal clear that under his government(s) the library service is being destroyed.

We continue:

"Our best estimates show that as many as 200 public libraries have closed since 2008 and many hundreds more are being forced to make short-term decisions to transition into community-led models the sustainability of which remains an open question without appropriate planning or support."

I'm sorry, but estimates don't mean much. Another weak statement. "200 and more public libraries have closed since 2008." Stronger, and more definite. Saying 'our best estimates' simply illustrates that CILIP doesn't actually KNOW how many libraries have closed. The PM is going to look at that and really wonder if we have any handle on what is happening at all. The phrase 'which remains an open question' again illustrates that we don't KNOW what's going to happen with volunteer, community led models. I'm sorry, but we do know exactly what's going to happen, because we've seen it happening time and time again. The libraries fail. Moving into 'community led models' doesn't save libraries, it merely delays their closure. This has to be spelled out in far stronger, more impassioned language.

Further on we go:

"1000’s of qualified librarians have either lost their jobs or find themselves at risk of redundancy – a permanent loss of professional skills that will do profound and lasting damage to Britain’s future as a globally-competitive Knowledge Economy." 

How many thousands? Rough estimates will not interest the Prime Minister. If we don't know, and I fully accept that it's virtually impossible to, we need a better figure and a stronger approach. The PM doesn't care about risks of redundancy - if he did he would have done something about it in other areas. No, no, no. We need to illustrate what happens when we lose librarians. 'The loss of skilled information professionals has already damaged library services and the communities they serve. If Britain is to compete in a future globally competitive Knowledge Economy we need more well trained professionals who can teach the general population, can assist local businesses make better and more informed choices, provide children with more access to the digital world. Librarians can help propel us forward, not only in a cultural sense, but in a very real economic sense. More professionals lead to a better, more powerful economy, while a reduction in their numbers leaves the entire country the weaker for it.'

More:

"I need hardly point out that the likely outcome of further significant savings passed on to Local Government in the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget will trigger an avalanche of short-term decisions and further redundancies and is likely to put the Public Library Network itself – long the beating heart of our communities, a foundation of Britain’s education, equality and social mobility and a central pillar of our economic future – at risk."

You do have to point it out, and do so strongly. Lose concepts like 'likely outcomes'. I'm not interested in likely - and neither is the PM. We are the professionals, CILIP is the body, and it needs to make it a damn sight clearer than likely. Tell it like it is CILIP! 'We will see further, and increasingly damaging cuts that cannot be reversed. Our education system has already been damaged by library closures, the equality and social mobility of our citizens is being reduced, and our local businesses are struggling to compete.'

More:

"While we recognise the Government’s aim to reduce public expenditure, it is essential to recognise that library services are often one of the smallest expenditure items in Council budgets but that they unlock a tremendous range of benefits including improved literacy and attainment, improved health and wellbeing, digital literacy and employability."

This is great, but if we're reminding the government about what it needs to do, let's make the point that Ed Vaizey isn't doing any of it. How about making it clear that he has done nothing to fight library closures, and moreover, he's not talking to CILIP. We all know *why* he isn't, but that's beside the point. The PM needs to know that decisions are being taken without proper consultation with the appropriate professional bodies. 

Further:

"...it is all too possible that the legacy of your Government may be a network of hollowed-out services, delivering only the most basic of library functions and failing to meet the reasonable expectations of the public."

Sorry CILIP - 'all too possible'? Get rid of that for starters. The legacy of the government will be hollowed out services, damaged communities, closed libraries that will never, ever open again, increased illiteracy and more citizens for whom a computer is a closed magical black box.

Nick then goes on to talk about some good stuff about working together to promote libraries, all of which is good stuff. However, there's another line here that just doesn't work:

"We urge you to work with the Chancellor, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and the Local Government Association to recognise the importance of libraries, to protect them as far as possible in the forthcoming budget"

That's the language of the defeated. Anything that's protected as far as possible isn't protected at all. Yes, I know that there are plenty of other services that are being wrecked, and that's appalling. However, we need to protect our own at this point. We need to state, in far, far stronger terms that not only do libraries need complete protection, but in order to create more jobs, better educated citizens, increased literacy (both written and digital), more confident communities, better informed local businesses we need to expand the library service. By starting with the assumption that we're going to be cut back it's inevitable that we will be. 

I understand that the language being used in the letter has to be tempered. However, I can also tell you that if Cameron actually reads what Nick has written I'd be astonished. It's going to get flung across to Vaizey who will then ignore it, or continue with the usual platitudes. We need strong, vibrant powerful language for everyone else. The letter needs to be in the Bookseller, professional press, local newspapers and so on. We need to demonstrate that we care about the library service, the information professionals and our communities. We need to be strident in pointing out that better library services lead to better communities, and every penny we put into a library service pays us back time and time again. We should not be ashamed or embarrassed of our passion. We should not stand politely at the door of Number 10 hoping to be noticed by one of the PM's aides. We need to be there hammering on the door, demanding to be let it. If we don't show the passion, if we don't shout louder and louder, if we don't make it clear to our communities that we are fighting for them then we deserve to lose everything we have.

CILIP - you need to do more. You need to be passionate. You need to be vocal. You need to be seen to be standing up - if not for the Prime Minister, but for your members, their library services, and most of all, for their communities.

40 Social media statistics

If you're a trainer, educator, librarian or geek, statistics on social media are a must. Here are a few that I've found recently, together with sources. 

1) Global Active Internet Users now totals 3.175 Billion, that’s nearly half of the world’s population (7.357 Billion).

2) As for Social Media, there are over 2.206 Billion active users, a global penetration of 30%.

3) There are 3.734 Billion Unique Mobile Users as of this quarter, accounting for a 51% worldwide penetration. 

4) 1.925 Billion users utilise their mobiles for Social Media platforms.

5) Social Media users have risen by 176 Million in the last year. 

6) 365 Million active mobile social users have been added over the same time span, an incredible total growth of 541 Million.

7) Facebook adds ½ million new users every day; 6 new profiles every second. An ever-expanding market worth tapping into.

8) Mobile users constitute half of the world’s population, and 2 million smart phones are sold worldwide every single day. 

9) 12 new active mobile social users are added every second, that’s 1 Million per day.

10)  WhatsApp has gained 300 Million new users since this time last year (August 2014), a year on year growth of 60%.

(From http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/kadie-regan/2015-08-10/10-amazing-social-media-growth-stats-2015)

11) 75% increase in Facebook video posts since 2014

12) 3 million videos shared on Facebook every day

13) 350 million stickers shared each day on Facebook

14) Tumblr has 230.5 million blogs

15) With 107.9 million posts per day

16) and 300 million unique monthly visitors

17) Instagram had a 50% growth between March/December 2014

18) with 30 billion photographs shared

19) and 70 million photographs posted per day

20) and 2.5 billion likes per day

(From http://www.shoutlet.com/blog/2015/05/visual-social-media-evolution-infographic/)

21) 8,195 tweets sent per second

22) 1,558 Instagram photos uploaded per second

22) 1,636 Tumblr posts created per second

23) 46,701 Google searches run per second

24) 92,841 YouTube videos viewed per second

25) 54,806 likes on Facebook per second

26) 1,120 hours of music listened to on Pandora per second

(From: http://www.adweek.com/prnewser/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2015/03/internet-second-infographic.jpg)

27) There are nearly 1.4 billion Facebook users

28) 47% of all internet users are on Facebook is hit 5 billion times per day

29) The Google+ button The +1 button is hit 5 billion times per day

30) LinkedIn has 347 million registered members

(From:http://www.jeffbullas.com/2015/04/08/33-social-media-facts-and-statistics-you-should-know-in-2015/)

31) Approximately 81 percent of Twitter’s advertising revenue comes from mobile and there is a $200,000 cost estimated for a 24-Hour Promoted Trend on Twitter.

32) YouTube is expected to generate $5.6 billion in gross revenue in 2016. Currently, there are 6 billion hours of video watched on YouTube per month and 1 billion videos watched over mobile phones per day.

33) Flickr has over 3.5 million images uploaded daily by users

(From: http://smallbiztrends.com/2015/07/social-media-sites-statistics.html)

34) In an average month, 1.28 billion users are active on Facebook.

35) 30% of the U.S. population gets its daily news on Facebook. 

36) Twitter drives just over 1% of all website traffic. While that’s considerably less than Facebook or Pinterest, it’s more visits than are driven by StumbleUpon, Reddit, Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn–combined. 

(From: https://www.meltwater.com/blog/35-stupendous-social-networking-facts-and-stats/)

37) 323 days worth of YouTube videos are viewed on Facebook every minute

(From: http://wp.me/p1vfs3-4lD)

38) 400 hours of video are now uploaded to YouTube every minute.

39) More online content is created every 2 days than in the whole of human history prior to 2003.

(From: http://www.havashivemind.com/2015/08/03/vidcon-2015-what-you-can-learn-from-youtube/)

40) The number of people watching YouTube per day has increased by 40% since last year

(From: http://www.networkedindia.com/2015/07/27/mobile-is-driving-half-of-youtubes-views-susan-wojcicki/)

Hope that you find those interesting - but remember, they're just statistics, and they mean whatever you want them to mean!

Why we must fight the 'snoopers charter'.

Since winning the election, David Cameron has put the Investigatory Powers Bill back on the agenda after it was blocked during the coalition. This bill also known as the 'snoopers charter' will compel a communications service provide to collect and retain data about their users. Any organisation that interacts with their users will have to keep this information, even if it's entirely irrelevant to their own business needs. The prime minister said back in January "In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which we cannot read?” He went on; "My answer to that question is no we must not. If I am prime minister, I will make sure it is a comprehensive piece of legislation that makes sure we do not allow terrorist safe spaces to communicate with each other"

It's a nice idea in theory isn't it - keeping us safe. However, this isn't going to work, and in fact this bill would cause untold damage, so let's break it down a little bit. The obvious first step is going to be that companies such as Twitter and Facebook will have to record information on all of your discussions with friends, and to keep this for a period of time. What happens if they don't want to? Are they going to be banned? What about messaging services such as What's App or Snapchat? They are going to have to be banned as well. I'll come back and look at this in a moment, because there's more to come.

What Cameron really means to do is to ban effective cryptography. Now, cryptography either works or it doesn't, you can't have it working 'a little bit'. So what he wants to do is to ensure that companies would have to introduce some sort of backdoor access to their software so that the British government can take a peek if it wants to. This will not work. It won't work because if a hacker knows that there is a backdoor, it will be found - it's absolutely inevitable and it will probably take no more than hours, not even days to do this. We've seen it often enough with other 'secure' data. 

Now, if a company is looking after YOUR money for example, and it cannot do so safely, what is it going to do? The obvious answer is to leave the UK, which is what Eris Industries have threatened to do. Now of course terrorists are not going to sit back and just say 'ok, you've got us' they'll start to use better encryption software, encrypt their messages and pass them back and forth across Facebook. Facebook can keep all the data that they want, but it's not going to be of any use to the Government. Consequently the government has to take control of your software to ensure that you can't do this. Logically it's got to be able to look at everything on your computer. Now, you use crypto software all of the time - just look at your browser, and when you see the little padlock symbol, that's encryption. When you check your bank details, when you order something online, when you use PayPal, that's all encrypted. 

It's easy to get around of course, since you can simply install a VPN and get access to the data that you want, so the software on ALL computers would have to be redesigned to stop things like that happening - you'd need to end up with an enclosed system like iOS, with every piece of software being checked to ensure that it wasn't concealing encryption software that could be used. We then have 'state run' computers. The next step around that of course is for a terrorist to use something small and powerful like a Raspberry Pi machine. So anyone coming into the country is going to need to be searched to see if they're carrying on. They will need to surrender USB sticks to be checked to ensure that they're not bringing in illegal software. So what about their smartphones? These will need to be checked as well of course.

This brings us back to an earlier point - any software that's on a smartphone that encrypts data that moves between people is going to have to be banned, and this is where the national press are picking things up. 

WhatsApp faces UK ban within weeks from the Express.

WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger ban could be just weeks away under 'Snoopers Charter' from the Huffington Post. 

WhatsApp could be BANNED in the UK under strict 'Snooper's Charter' law from the Mirror.

So let's take this even further shall we? In order to have WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger banned, they're going to need to be removed from the Apple and Google stores. Are either of these companies going to be impressed with that idea? I hardly think so. However, let's say that they agreed to it. Your phone would need to be accessed and the apps deleted. When you go abroad however to a non-totalitarian state you could re-install the software. This means that - as already mentioned - your phone would need to be checked when you come back into the UK and illegal apps deleted. Foreign visitors will need to surrender their phones, or delete the offending apps. Can you image how keen a business person is going to be with that idea, knowing that they're going to find it next to impossible to keep in minute by minute communication with their head office abroad? What about tourists? Can you see them being impressed with the idea that they can't snap pictures of where they are and what they're doing to send to their friends back home?

Next, all new apps going into the stores will need to be checked by British security services. Can you imagine how much that would delay getting material into our computers or onto our smartphones? We're going to go straight to third world status in terms of computing. 

Ignoring all of that - if you can - let's look at the issue of civil liberty. What is being proposed is mass, continuous surveillance by the government. We would - in effect - have no privacy at all, and that's really something that only totalitarian regimes are inflicting on their citizens. Companies that are not keen on assisting this will in effect have to be banned from the UK; a logical conclusion being that we'd not only say goodbye to Facebook messaging, but to Facebook itself. Now, you may well say that these companies are not going to want to give up their huge markets, but equally, it's going to cost them a lot in terms of outlay to produce broken cryptography which is country specific, and their users are going to be less than impressed.  

The insanity of all of this of course is that the government is going to be doing the job of the terrorists for them - making life so much more difficult in the UK. Not only that, any terrorist worth their salt is going to be able to get around these new laws with no difficulty at all. It's only the law abiding, normal computer using individuals who will suffer, because they won't know how to circumvent this. So the honest citizens will be handicapped, and the wicked will remain free to do just what they want.

No doubt that Mr Cameron will say that this isn't what he means at all, and has no intention of banning such apps or messaging services. All this will illustrate however is that he has absolutely no idea what he's trying to do, and doesn't understand the implications of what he is suggesting. Everyone else, from Tim Berners-Lee on down thinks that this is an insane, draconian and anti-democratic concept. And they're right. 

 

 

Google and global censorship

On 13 May 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union recognised the 'Right to be forgotten' ruling against Google and all other search engines. You probably don't need to be reminded, but it means that if inaccurate or out of date material (or even just something that someone doesn't like that is said about themselves) is found in Google, that person can apply to the local variant of the engine to have it removed - or rather 'delisted', which is to say that the material itself on the website would still be there, just that Google wouldn't point to it with a direct search. 

Google made it fairly easy to overcome this however by simply redirecting the browser to the .com version of the search engine, where the offending article could still be easily found. More recently they have made it slightly more difficult to get to .com from the local version by reducing the number of links on a local Google home page. However that's not enough for CNIL, which is the French data protection authority. CNIL has requested Google to carry out the delisting of several results. It was expressly requested that the delisting should be effective on whole search engine, irrespective of the extension used (.fr; .uk; .com …).

This is opening up a real can of worms, because it's really implying that any national court has jurisdiction over the entire world. If one court finds that something is inappropriate, then Google's work around of removing the material in that country will no longer work. Now, is this censorship? Depends on your viewpoint I think. It's not censorship in that the material is still available, just much harder to find - we're back to where we were in the days of print only; you have to wade through a lot of data to get what you need. On the other hand, given the amount of data that's now available, if material has been 'delisted' (which is a far better term that the clumsy 'right to be forgotten') and that makes it virtually impossible to find - is that a de facto form of censorship anyway? Furthermore, if it's possible to find material that says that 'John Smith is a paedophile' then to all intents and purposes - he is! You had to dig deep into local newspaper archives to find it, and you have that information. However, if it transpired that 5 years later it turns out that he wasn't a paedophile and was unjustly imprisoned, it's just as difficult to find that; probably more so since is a searcher going to spend hours further trying to hunt down information that may not actually exist? If the details of the case AND the later overturning of it are both freely available isn't that more helpful?

We also have the problem of competing claims. If country A demands the global delisting of an article, and country B says that the material should remain available, what is Google to do at that point? (I'm not aware that this has happened yet, but it's going to, I'm sure.) What these national courts are expecting the search engine to do is to act as a global servant of that court, when in actual fact it has no jurisdiction to do so, and that's not its role. This is another problem that I have with the whole RTBF or delisting issue - Google is expected to look at individual complaints and make up its own mind on the validity of each case. Is that really what we want from a multinational? To act as a judge and jury for us?

What then happens when the boot is on the other foot, and something happens that the Americans don't like. Say for example that I've got material on a server that conflicts with the American Patriot Act and I have an office in New York; I'm pretty sure that the Americans would want access to it. They may want to data mine the information or delete it entirely. Whistleblowers are either to be protected the world over, or they're not. However, there's a danger that I'll go off down a side road at this point, so I'll just park this point here and move on.

What can search engines do in this situation? Well, they can decide to complete ignore the ruling and take whatever slap on the wrist they get given. If they really don't like it they could always pull out of a particular country. Google could look at the IP address of an individual and if they are based in France could simply remove the data from the search results; that's relatively easy to do. However, it's also very easy to get around it with a VPN that tells the engine that they're actually not in France, they're in Ohio instead. Alternatively they can just pull all of the data when requested. As mentioned previously, this is going to be a difficult call. Russia is implementing their own RTBF law only it goes much further than the European version, since they'd just have to say what material they wanted removed AND it includes reference to public figures. Does this mean that a search engine is going to have to remove something on Putin that the Russians don't like? I really can't see that happening to be honest. 

Now, if that wasn't difficult enough, CNIL actually wants a different solution. They want material removed for ALL French citizens from where ever in the world they are. Quite how Google is supposed to do this isn't quite clear. There are options I suppose - by placing cookies onto a machine which can't be removed by the owner (hey, I didn't say that it would be a sensible option!), by limiting by language (ditto), or limit by registered user (in which case don't search while being logged into your account). None of these options work at all well. It doesn't appear that CNIL has really thought this through in any detail at all, or indeed has any real understanding for how the internet and search engines work - no change there then.

How does that affect information professionals? It's something that we are going to have to keep a really close eye on. We need to continually remember that results from one engine are not the same as you'll get with another, and even from the same engine if you're using different country versions, but that's nothing new. If it turns out that information on John Smith the paedophile is blocked in the UK, and you either know this or suspect it, to what extent should you inform your client of work arounds? If and when the Russian RTBF law comes into being, or indeed that of any other country, do we need to keep lists of which country says what? How much do we cross check from one source to another? Should we start to actively seek out search engines to use that don't have the same high profile as the big ones? Or just point someone in the direction of a computer and let them get on with it themselves?

There are no easy answers, and it's just going to get more difficult. CNIL gave Google 15 days to work something out and that window is coming to an end. It's going to be interesting to see what happens next!

EyeIn for social media image search

If you want to find images that are being shared right now on social media you might want to take a look at EyeIn. It's a fairly straightforward search engine - it's just that it pulls data in the form of images from social media platforms, and not the web. I tried a search for UK Houses of Parliament and got back a location and some event and trending information. Virtually all of the event and trending information was wrong, but the location was helpful, since you can click on it and expand to view the images that are being taken in that location at the moment:

You can look at individual pictures or run them as a slideshow. It's quite hypnotic to look at a lot of pictures that have been taken in pretty much the same place at the same time - I'm pretty sure that I saw photographers of one picture appearing in the background of another one!

You can also follow up the trending topics as well. I looked at the sad case of Charleston and as well as the images from the location people were sharing image tweets that were also included. There were links to major news stories as well.

EyeIn allows you to limit your search to 'now', yesterday, last week, last month, last year or a custom date. It's fairly basic and what you would expect for something only just out of beta, but it's a useful tool to see what is happening in one specific place. For my money, that's what it's most useful for - when you have a location you can increase/decrease it or move from one place to another - I quickly moved from the Houses of Parliament down the road to Buckingham Palace for example. 

How long it's going to stay in business is another matter entirely. While it's conforming to the requirements of Twitter and Facebook, they could choose to turn that tap off at any point. So  make the most of it while it's there!

Google dramatically improve Trends

If you need to keep up with what's happening in the world in general, or in a specific niche field, you're going to really enjoy Google's new enhanced Trends service; their biggest expansion since 2012. It's based on the information that they have gleaned from over 100 million searches per month, according to their official blog post. You are now able to explore - minute by minute - as news stories wax and wane and during major world stories and events you'll be able to drill down to see what people are interested in, and where they happen to be searching from. Trends has a new home page, with current trending stories upfront and centre which you can scroll through. You can choose a particular region (such as the UK) and one of a small number of categories, such as Sci-Tech, or you can simply go with the front page as displayed for you and shown below:

You can then choose a subject to explore in more depth - I chose to look at the crisis in Greece:

This does help give you a clear idea of the level of interest in the subject over time. Below this graph is another that looks at which countries are particularly interested in this subject, top questions on Google about the subject (in this case, links to sites or stories talking about the possibility of Greece exiting the Euro), and finally related topics. These can then be followed, to see other related searches, and how popular they are. 

You can of course run your own searches for subjects that are of interest to you. I did a search for 'library closures' and was displayed the following graph:

By hovering over each letter I was shown a brief outline of the story, and I could then click on it and go straight to the original source. I could then go into specific periods of time - hours, months or years, to get more data. Unfortunately with my library closures search Google didn't have much to work with apparently, which was disappointing. However, in other subject areas I was easily able to drill down into specific time periods to research a subject of interest. Google also offers information on which countries are interested in the subject area, and related searches - but once again, you have to chose fairly high volume subject areas. 

You can also compare different terms quickly and easily; I tried a search for iphone, ipad and android.

It was really easy to swop terms in and out by using the dialogue boxes. Then I could narrow the search down again of course to a specific region, period of time, subject area and news/image search. Instead of searching for results from web searches when I searched for News, it brought up really interesting results:

It was quite easy to see when different versions of the devices had been released, and I could track interest over time, as well as clicking on specific stories as they were displayed. Of course, if there was something interesting that Trends didn't offer me, I could always have gone back and searched at the period of time that interested me.

Google has also provided a useful left hand side menu:

I can use this to once again start to drill down and explore items of interest. I can see trends in the UK as of about an hour ago, and I can also see what was of interest yesterday. 

I can click on the title of the piece and run a search on it, search the subject indepth, share on G+ Twitter and Facebook, or click directly on the news link and go straight to that story. 

I can also see what's trending on YouTube as well - and once again by country, over a period of time, and I can choose to have a safety filter on or off. I was slightly bemused that 'The secret life of pets' trailer was not regarded as 'safe', but there you go. 

You can also do a retrospective search to see what top charts were trending in years gone past, and there's also a subscribe option to keep up to date. There is a link through to Google Correlate where you can compare different search patterns.  Finally, there is also a link through to the Google data store, where you can download different collections of data to do your own research on. 

In summary - this is a really welcome improvement on the trends service which only seemed to be valuable at the end of the year as an amusing filler story at Christmas to see what we'd spent the year looking for. If you are a journalist or researcher, I suspect that the new improved Google Trends is going to swiftly become irreplaceable. The inevitable question of course is 'how long is it going to last?'