Rick Falkvinge's Blog, page 19

Acknowledging The Important Value Of Hate Speech

Freedom of Speech: Banning so-called “hate speech” is a grave, irresponsible, and serious mistake for at least three reasons. Such restrictions of free speech, while looking like an easy way out from an inconvenient situation, are horribly counterproductive even from a pragmatic standpoint. Besides, there is no such thing as “restrictions of free speech” – there is free speech, or there is not.

Several countries – even those who consider themselves first-world, free-world – have restrictions on what political opinions you may utter in public. This is the textbook case of not having free speech, and despite this, those countries tend to keep pretending they have freedom of speech – even to the point where it is written into the Constitution under ceremonious proceedings, then promptly ignored under a number of exception clauses.

One of the easiest such targets for irresponsible populist politicians is so-called hate speech, where somebody expresses rage, hatred, or other forms of prejudice toward a group of people. In such countries, irresponsible politicians have tended to ban this “hate speech”, harshly punishing such expressions of political opinion with jail sentences up to five years in the so-called free world.

This is counterproductive populism for three reasons.

1. The principle:

You are either in favor of free speech, or you are not. There is no free speech at all – zero – if you only allow “acceptable” expressions.

Free speech exists to protect the most despicable of expressions, the most vile utterances. That is for very good reason: every now and then, disruption proves that the despised people were the ones in the moral right. This has happened many times in recent history – human rights for homosexuals would be a recent lifetime example. (Who could have imagined 50 years ago that homosexual humans were humans too, and deserved human rights?)

Free speech exists specifically to allow and protect opinions that offend and repulse other people.

If you only allow speech and opinions that you like, then the next day, somebody else will allow only speech and opinions that they like. Those opinions may include a ban on regarding you as a human being in any way, shape, or form. (Don’t laugh. This is reality in Russia and some other countries for homosexual human beings.) Such a naïve populism can come back to bite you quickly, would there be a change of regime.

Consititutional protection was never necessary to protect somebody stating an uncontroversial opinion that everybody agrees with, and which is the equivalent of “kittens are cute”, “apple pie is good”, or “we have always been at war with Eurasia”.

Never poke fun at a Nigger

A Spic, or a Wop, or a Kraut

Monty Python – “Never Be Rude To An Arab“

 

2. The pragmatic:

Hate speech is an important safety valve before hate violence.

If you prevent hate speech, people inclined to hatred will go directly from hate thought to the third step, which is hate violence. You want to prevent that.

Somebody who carries resentment can not be detected at the hate thought stage – the hate speech stage is the first stage detectable to society, which is why you want this, you want to see as much of it as possible. This is when somebody can be addressed by the community through informal and formal means – why are they full of hatred? Are they feeling well? Are they just stupid bigots, and if so, can they be talked out of it? Or have they possibly pinpointed a very real injustice in society? (Don’t neglect that last possibility.)

In all three cases, you want this hate speech to appear, so that the problem can be peacefully addressed. If it is not allowed to appear, it will proceed to the next stage, which is hate violence.

Banning hate speech does not get rid of the underlying problem. It does, however, destroy the crucial safety valve in society before violence appears.

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics,

And the Catholics hate the Protestants,

And the Hindus hate the Muslims,

And everybody hates the Jews.

Tom Lehrer – “National Brotherhood Week“

 

3. The human:

Banning hate speech codifies that people are of unequal worth.

In some countries, you are prohibited from expressing that people born into a certain culture or skin color are of less worth. While I agree with this factually – that nobody is worth less because of how they were born – such a law codifies exactly that.

Ponder the fact that no law anywhere in such countries prohibit hate expressions against me, a middle-aged light-skinned male. Yet, there are several laws that prohibit hate expressions against other people that are, as the law says, “worthy of protection”.

This means that a law against hate speech of only certain groups codifies that people are of unequal worth because of conditions they were born into and had no say over. Such a law cannot possibly be just.

In conclusion, there are very good reasons to defend hate speech, and the politicians who take the easy way out and ban such speech and opinions (or defend an existing ban) are neglectful at best and irresponsible at worst.

Public Ask-Me-Anything Q&A Sesssion On Reddit This Monday – 16:00 Brussels / 10am New York

Events: This Monday at 16:00 Europe / 10am New York, I’ll be answering questions publicly on Reddit. Reddit is a site that hosts so-called AMAs, short for Ask Me Anything, that has been visited by U.S. Presidents, rock stars, garbage men, and taxi drivers alike. Such a public Q&A session typically spans hundreds or thousands of questions and tens of thousands of visitors.

My timeslot is at 10:00 this Monday (Oct 21), but all times are in U.S. Eastern Time (New York), translating to 16:00 Central European Time (Brussels, Stockholm, Amsterdam). The AMA thread is here, post any questions you like, I’ll be responding through Monday (European time) and doing some catchup Tuesday, at least.

Anything you ever wanted to know about the history of the Pirate Party, the thinking behind Swarmwise, or the need for copyright monopoly reform, or public speaking tips and tricks, or just my fantastic cooking skills that only my friends otherwise see, and hang my answers out to dry in public – here’s your go at it!

UPDATE – the AMA is now live here.

Down With (The Word) “Capitalism”

Activism – Zacqary Adam Green: Capitalism. We keep saying that word. We don’t think it means what everyone else thinks it means. Whatever the word “capitalism” used to mean, it’s now been mutated into thought-preventing newspeak. Nobody can have a real discussion if we insist on using it.

“Capitalism” is one of those words where the dictionary definition has very little to do with how people actually use it in conversation. The word means many things depending on whom you ask, what the context of the discussion is, and something random like the current alignment of the planets or whatever. It can mean:

Something good about the status quo: The ability to start your own business. The free market (when it works). Competition leading to better ideas. Consumer choice. Choice of which job you want. All of the above, or just some of the above.
Something bad about the status quo: The private ownership of the means of production. Exploitation of workers. The free market (when it doesn’t work). Competition stifling good ideas. Plutocracy. Monopolies. Short-term profiteering at the expense of the environment. All or some of the above.
Something that isn’t the status quo: The free market. Smaller, decentralized businesses instead of giant corporations. Lack of plutocracy. Lack of monopolies. Distributed ownership of the means of production. A healthy labor market where you can choose a decent wage. All or some of the above.

It also helps to note the various things that “anti-capitalism” means:

Tyranny
Freedom
No freedom
Democracy
Lack of democracy
Having your home taken away from you
Not being in danger of having your home taken away from you
Being forced to work a pointless job that you hate
Not being forced to work a pointless job that you hate
Authoritarian centralized planning
Libertarian decentralized planning
Anarchy
Inherently statist, therefore not anarchy
Economically stagnant dystopia
Post-scarcity utopia
Living in the woods and eating bark and wearing fur
Explosive technological and scientific advancement freed from the demands of capital
Star Trek
Mad Max
Stalin
Gandhi
The free market (yes, really)

Unless you stay within a social circle where everyone agrees on the meaning of “capitalism” (which you probably won’t), asking the question “are you pro- or anti-capitalism?” makes about as much sense as “are you pro- or anti-histamine?” Except “anti-histamine” actually has a definition.

So, I beg of you, people of the world. If you’re pro-capitalist (whatever that means), please stop trying to convince people that the problem is “corporatism, not capitalism.” If you’re anti-capitalist (whatever that means), please stop trying to convince people that “capitalism is exploitation.” As soon as the word “capitalism” starts getting thrown around, everyone’s preconceived notion of what that word means takes over, and constructive debate becomes impossible. Psychologically, it’s as if either side is screaming at each other in completely different languages.

Obviously, I’m not going to force anyone to change the words they use. Only a capitalist and/or anti-capitalist would try to do something like that. But seriously. It’d be great if we could stop saying this word, and say what we mean instead.

Victory: US Border Patrol Reverses Harassment Thanks To You

Activism – Travis McCrea: Back in September, I posted a cute GIF laden post which outlined my harassment by the US Border Patrol, where they have gone as far as accused the Pirate Party of being a terrorist movement.

A few days after that, I had travelled to Canada for the day and when I came back… there was no inspection at all. Not even an invasive question, they asked where I was coming from and what I did there… and allowed me to answer with vague but descriptive answers (went to TO, visited friends).

Yesterday, I was traveling with friends but took a separate car as to not subject them to the torment that I typically have to go through at the border. To my surprise and relief, as I crossed at the border crossing that I have most trouble with (there are 3 border crossings near me to choose from) they did not search my car, they did not ask me invasive questions, they asked the minimal amount of questions and let me answer with vague answers and off I went.

This wasn’t just a coincidence — this was because of you. I had travelled over 12 times across the border before that post, and every time I was stopped. Every person who shared that post with their friends, every person who gave me encouragement, and every person who sent a tweet to @CBPBuffalo helped them realize that I am not a terrorist, and having political beliefs is not wrong but rather a critical part to a thriving democracy.

We called their bluff, they threatened to call the FBI counter terrorism department and have them lock me up in a dark room while they grilled me with questions… I stood firm in my beliefs, knowing that I had the best team in the world on my side… and I did. They didn’t call the FBI, they removed my flag from the system, and I am now free to travel in and out of this country.

This wasn’t due to their loving nature, this was you. So thank you, and know that while we face an uphill battle for protecting our freedoms. Every once in a while we get little victories in our fight, this is certainly one of them and even though it might not have felt like you did much — your small (or large) effort combined with everyone else did just make a change.

Let’s dance.

Swarmwise Book Discussion In Brussels Next Week

Events: Next Tuesday, the leadership book Swarmwise will be featured in a book launch event in Brussels. Simon Wilson, the director of Edelman Brussels, will moderate a discussion between Joe Paluska and the author, yours truly. The event will be held at The Centre, Rue du Trône 4, 2nd floor, B-1000 Brussels at 12:30 on Tuesday October 15.

Joe Paluska, who is Global Technology Chair of Edelman, will provide his views on the author’s experiences and conclusions on cost-efficient leadership by empowering volunteers in an informal discusson. Paluska has more than 20 years of experience spanning public relations, public policy, journalism, and business affairs.

The event takes place at Edelman’s The Centre over lunch Tuesday. Register at Edelman to book your participation in the event.

(Oh, and there will also be copies of Swarmwise for sale for €10 each – less than half Amazon’s price.)

US Corporate “Safe Harbor” For European Private Data Lied About, Abused, Ignored; Europarl Calls For Immediate Scrapping

Privacy – Henrik Alexandersson: US corporations routinely ignore and abuse the strict privacy rules of European private citizen data, which they have accessed under the “safe harbor” agreement of the European Union. This surfaced in this week’s Europarl hearing on mass surveillance, causing the European Parliament’s rapporteur to call for a complete scrapping of the safe harbor arrangement right in the middle of the hearing. This is a further erosion of already-brittle trust in privacy respect by the United States.

At this Monday’s hearing on mass surveillance in the European Parliament, completely devastating information surfaced about the EU-to-US “safe harbor” on private citizen data. Here’s the details:

When private data on European Union citizens are transmitted to the United States, the corporations handling and managing that data must fulfil certain requirements, largely corresponding to European standards of protection of privacy.

In this Monday’s hearing, it surfaced that most U.S. corporations completely ignore this. And normally, they lie, and falsely state that they respect the safe harbor regulations. This is serious, as there practically isn’t any protection of private data at all in the United States.

And it gets worse. There are obvious connections between many U.S. corporations lying about safe harbor and the NSA mass surveillance. This means that private data that the European Union naïvely thought was safe is actually wide open to the U.S. surveillance apparatus.

The transgressions are so obvious that the European Parliament’s rapporteur (responsible manager) called for the entire safe harbor agreement to be scrapped right in the meeting.

(As a side note, it was planned that the EU commissioner responsible for IT matters, Neelie Kroes, should have been in the meeting. But she declined to.)

Read more: Hundreds of US companies make false data protection claims

European Principles Of Due Process Shoved Aside To Hunt Down Pirate Bay Founder

Corruption – Henrik Alexandersson: In the upcoming extradition request against Gottfrid Svartholm-Warg, co-founder of The Pirate Bay, Danish judicial authorities are disregarding an important acquittal in Swedish courts. This is remarkable, as European courts are bound to respect each others’ verdicts. It’s not hard to get the gut feeling that the establishment unites against the troublemakers and pushes all its safeguards aside, letting rights only apply to the Goliaths and not the Davids.

In the European Union, there is the principle of accepting the law enforcement and due process of law in other member states. There is an underlying assumption that the Greek justice system is safe and secure; there is an underlying assumption that the Bulgarian police is not corrupt. These assumptions are made because it’s necessary – even if they should happen to be outright proven false, the assumptions must still remain in place.

The reason is simple: if not, the Europan Arrest Warrant wouldn’t work at all. (The EAW is a tool which is abused casually in the European member states these days.) Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to propose tools like the European Investigation Order. (Which, for example, would force the Swedish police to investigate an Irish or Polish woman in Sweden suspected of breaking her home country’s ban on abortions, a women’s right which is sacrosanct in Sweden.) Otherwise, the European Union would not be able to progress with its plans on a European Prosecution Office.

But apparently, there are exceptions to the rule – when the Powers That Be want to really, really nail somebody hard.

Over to Gottfrid Svartholm-Warg. He’s convicted of electronic trespassing in Sweden (against Logica). But the Appeals Court has acquitted him from another case, against Nordea, following the expert testimony of Jacob Appelbaum who testified the prosecutorial technical evidence to be abysmally insufficient.

Let’s focus on the case against Nordea. The Appeals Court considered the prosecutor’s evidence unsatisfactory, and acquitted Svartholm-Warg. That should be it then, right?

But no: there is still a request from Denmark for Svartholm-Warg’s extradition – for investigation and trial concerning a case built on the exact same evidence and circumstances as the Nordea case. That is, the exact same thing he was just acquitted from in Sweden.

That, in itself, is both peculiar and inappropriate.

Besides, all of a sudden, the European Union’s principles of accepting the judicial authorities of other Member States have ceased being in effect. As long as the Danish extradition request to Sweden is active, the State of Denmark is rejecting the integrity, legitimacy, and competence of the Swedish justice system. (Which is rather remarkable between European member states.)

Everything is as usual in the European Union: the rules only apply if they benefit the big guy.

And in Denmark, both the Minister of Justice and the Minister of the Interior have made public statements that they consider Svartholm-Warg guilty. Just so that the Danish police and courts know what they have to abide by.

Here, it’s important to keep in mind that it’s a suspicion of identical actions, equally illegal in both countries. Therefore, it would be rather absurd if Svartholm-Warg was acquitted in one country and convicted in the other.

I suspect things are working like this: High-profile electronic trespassing (“hacking”, sloppily) is an embarrassment that requires somebody to be crucified – regardless of whether it’s the right guy or not. And the State of Denmark might consider it a bonus to cause extra trouble for one of the guys behind The Pirate Bay. This isn’t justice, this is politics.

Copyright’s Three Lines Of Defense

Copyright Monopoly – Johnny Olsson: I’ve followed and participated in the copyright debate for years, and I’ve come to realize there are certain patterns that repeat themselves. You can roughly say there are three lines of defense: One that appeals to emotions, one that appeals to pragmatism, and one that appeals to a sense of responsibility. I’m going to take this opportunity and try to break them down.

The first line of defense is the artists, sent out like cannon fodder to appeal to our emotions. The stories of the talented artists who pour their souls into their work and can’t make a decent living out of it are always heartbreaking. But guess what? It was never easy being an artist. You want a secure income? Go for a nine-to-five job. I think Henry Rollins said it best, when in an interview about his days with Black Flag, he said “And maybe you missed some meals, or the cops came and shut your show down, but man, you weren’t flipping burgers and you weren’t filling slurpies, and there’s something to be said for that.” The point here being, that everything is a matter of compromise. Either you get a boring job to secure an income and do your writing or painting or whatever your art of choice is in your spare time, or you go for it full time and expect to miss some meals. Actually making a living out of something you love to do is a luxury. The factory where I earn my pay doesn’t pay me because working there is fun. They pay me because it’s not! If it was fun I would work for free. And that’s why artists have a hard time getting paid; because they have about zero leverage. Everyone they ever negotiate with: club owners, record companies, publishers, et cetera, have leverage over you as an artist because in the end, you will perform regardless of the pay. You’ll perform for free beer in the bar and you’ll even pay to be published just for the sole satisfaction of being published. This is the truth for the majority of artists, and this is why so little of the money in the copyright industry lands in their pockets. But copyright does very little, if anything, to improve the artists’ situation.

The second line of defense is the industry itself. The argument here is that it’s an industry that involves a lot of people and if they go out of business, you may have a serious situation on your hands, with thousands and thousands of jobs lost. This argument has its points, and for someone reasonable who doesn’t just act upon emotions and therefore passes the first line of defense, this is a bit trickier. Even if you dislike the copyright industry, pure pragmatism may lead you to think that economic depression is even worse. But don’t worry. The copyright industry is fine and they’re not going out of business in a foreseeable future. And even if they were, well, it happens. Things become obsolete all the time. It would be tragic on some personal levels, and it may have effect on communities heavily reliant on copyrighted material. It could turn Hollywood into a ghost town, which would be kinda fun. In this case I believe copyright works – I just don’t think it’s good. It ensures companies long term income for a short term success, it keeps competition at bay since owning the license to a work means you can remake it again and again, while others need to put their effort into coming up with something new. And there’s always the possibility to sue someone. The scariest part of the copyright industry going out of business is actually all the unemployed corporate lawyers. Chasing you down the street offering their services, throwing themselves in front of your car at traffic lights in desperation. If you offer a homeless lawyer something to eat he’ll choke on it and sue you. It will be a zombie apocalypse suited up!

The third line of defense is the claim “without copyright, there will be no culture”. This argument appeals to a sense of responsibility, like an environmental issue would. And while it could, or should, be hard for a politician to hide behind the second line because policies should not be about keeping an industry alive, and even harder to hide behind the first line for the same reason, this is the argument that politicians really get behind. Because it seems morally right. We have to respect copyright, for our children. We want the future generations to enjoy culture too, right? A world without culture, without the fine arts and the entertainment, what a horrible future that would be.

Of course, this is complete and utter bullshit. Culture was created long before copyright was ever invented. And it will continue to be created even if all the copyright laws are flushed down the drain tomorrow. Even if there wasn’t a chance in hell to earn a dime off of your creation, it wouldn’t even make a dent in the flow of culture. People will continue producing culture. How do I know this? Because the Internet is full of them. Blogs, YouTube, et cetera. From simple puns and lolcats to amazingly well-produced films – it’s all culture and it’s all created without money changing hands. This may seem shocking to the Lars Ulrichs of the world, but to the rest of us it’s no mystery.

The simple explanation is that expressing oneself is a far more important drive than money. This is also why people continue to remix culture to create new culture, even knowing that they might get sued. Or in even worse cases, why people continue to express themselves and create culture in places where the regime will crack down on them for doing so. There are a few loud voices in the debate leading people to believe that money is the superior drive in creating culture. And while that may be true for them, it’s not for the rest of us. For us it’s about expressing ourselves, receiving a pat on the back for the effort. It’s about the satisfaction of having created something. When I see an article I’ve written being shared I don’t grind my teeth over all the money I’m not making off of it (or the money I’m losing, as they say). I have a warm feeling of pride and accomplishment over the fact that my words, my thoughts are in circulation, and that people obviously like it. And every time I grow an inch. If people were required to pay for my writing, chances are they wouldn’t, and I would lose out on those fifteen minutes of fame and that, to be honest, complacency. And I would still have to go to work on Monday, just without that extra inch that gets me through the day.

Copyright was never about guaranteeing the artists pay. If it were, it would have to be considered an epic failure, as shown by Rick’s article the other day. Nor was it put in place to ensure that a proper amount of culture would be created. If it were, that would mean no-one created anything culturally noteworthy before copyright was invented. There are caves in France that say otherwise. Copyright originates from a form of censorship. It stems from monopolies given from the state to approved companies to make copies. Hence the word copyright. To be fair, the copyright laws have changed since then and, while wildly ineffective, can be said to protect right-holders’ interests. But it is still a monopoly given by the state, and it is still effective as a tool of censorship. So here’s the million dollar question: If you know that copyright at its origin was a form of censorship, and you accept the statement that culture wouldn’t be created without copyright, why would copyright ever have been invented? Why would there have been a need for copyright if what copyright was to shut up – but ended up protecting – was never there to begin with? You follow?

Swarmwise – The Tactical Manual To Changing The World. Chapter Nine.

Swarm Management: As much as people would like to disrupt the world by going their own way entirely, you cannot change an existing system without also becoming a little part of it in order to change it from the inside. Everybody can change something, but nobody can change everything. Your swarm’s focus probably isn’t on changing the way oldmedia works, so this is how you deal with them.

Swarmwise chapters – one chapter per month

1. Understanding The Swarm

2. Launching Your Swarm

3. Getting Your Swarm Organized: Herding Cats

4. Control The Vision, But Never The Message

5. Keep Everybody’s Eyes On Target, And Paint It Red Daily

6. Screw Democracy, We’re On A Mission From God

7. Surviving Growth Unlike Anything The MBAs Have Seen

8. Using Social Dynamics To Their Potential

9. Managing Oldmedia (this chapter)

10. Beyond Success (Nov 1)

The whole book is available for purchase from Amazon (US, UK) or for download as PDF.

When we discuss “oldmedia,” the word is in juxtaposition with “new media” (social media), and thus oldmedia refers to any traditional unidirectional, broadcast-message news reporting where people generally do not contribute, discuss, and talk back. Typical examples of oldmedia would be television, radio, and printed newspapers. These oldmedia still maintain a major say in forming public opinion, especially given the digital generational divide, so mastering this playing field is key. However, the reporters of oldmedia are getting their stories through newmedia channels — and this is where the swarm’s speed advantage comes into play.

Many organizations who want to be seen in newspapers or television think in terms of “getting them to run our story,” and shape their media strategies from there. This is not only ineffective, but counterproductive. Getting your quotes and your swarm’s name into oldmedia is really as easy as helping the reporters write a great story: put yourself in the reporters’ position, and think about what they would need at a given moment.

For example, assume that something newsworthy breaks on Twitter that relates to your swarm, and your gut feeling tells you that oldmedia will probably make a published article out of this piece of news. That’s when the clock starts. The reporters read the same newsfeeds on Twitter as you do, and the appearance of the tweet is when they start writing the story. What do they need at this exact point in time?

They need comments and quotes on the story to provide diversity to their coverage.

They will take about thirty to forty minutes to write the story draft, and it will publish in sixty. You have thirty minutes to provide your comments and quotes. If you do that, you are helping the reporters write a good and balanced story, and your quotes will get into the oldmedia story being written. The clock is already running: tick, tick, tick.

Getting a press release out in thirty minutes is hard, but completely doable. Press releases are expected to follow certain formats and contain certain keywords. I find that one of the most efficient ways of writing a press release in a swarm is to use an Etherpad or other form of multiplayer notepad, where everybody writes the document at the same time. As long as people are familiar with your swarm and its ideas and line of arguing, the volunteers in the swarm who jump in to help write the press release will create a completely OK set of comments at worst, and brilliant comments at best. We’ll be returning later in this chapter to who writes the press releases and why.

You need to practice getting press releases out to aim for about twenty-five minutes from the initial news event to your press release being sent. This is hard, but doable. In the Swedish Pirate Party, the time drilldown was approximately like this:

In the first five minutes from a news event breaking, we had a go or no-go decision on sending a press release about it.

In five minutes more, ten minutes from the newsbreak, we reached agreement on the angle of the press release and the general tone of the quotes from us.

Another ten minutes were needed for writing the actual press release among three to five people, starting from a template. That means we had the raw text ready twenty minutes from the first knowledge of the news.

It took about five minutes more to get three thumbs-ups (a vetting method we used) and to send the finished press release to the press.

These four actions give us twenty-five minutes in total.

Once a draft is finished, it is very easy to polish it forever while the minutes tick by. Every minute lost in this phase increases the probability that the oldmedia reporter will already have finished writing the story — and once it is published, don’t bother sending a press release; the reporters will have moved on to working on another story, and putting your press release in their hands at that point will just irritate.

For transmission to reporters, we use a regular WordPress blog, as people are often familiar with posting articles in WordPress. A special tool picked up anything new posted and mailed it to a long list of reporters, as filtered by the categories set on the article in WordPress. You can use pretty much any tool, as long as it is familiar to the activists in your swarm, persistent (you need a public-facing archive of press releases — WordPress wins again), and quickly transmits the press release.

So what does a press release look like, and what is its purpose? A press release, in its simplest form, is just mail sent to a reporter. (You will need to maintain a list of reporters writing on topics related to your swarm.) The template we used in the Swedish Pirate Party looked like this:

Press release — organization name — date and time

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Header

Lead paragraph (opens with location)

Quote

Fact

Quote

Fact

End Quote

For More Information

About the Organization

ENDS

These items have certain specific meanings to them. The words “For Immediate Release” at the top are a key phrase that tells oldmedia that they are allowed to print the story immediately, which will be the case for practically all your press releases. Next, the purpose of the header is to get the reporter to read the rest of the mail, so it need not be a perfect title for the story, just accurate enough and interesting enough. The body follows, starting with a lead paragraph that summarizes the story, then quotes and facts interwoven. The “For More Information” part is critical — this must be a phone number and/or e-mail address (or other means of direct contact) where the reporter can get hold of a person for immediate and exclusive quotes.

The press release should read as closely to a finished article as possible. The more the oldmedia reporter can cut and paste, the more work you are doing for them, and the higher the probability of becoming part of the story.

Some would argue that the entire point of the press release is to get a reporter to write an entirely new story. We’ll return to this a little later in this chapter, when we talk about avatars of the swarm.

Here’s a sample press release:

Press Release — The Swedish Pirate Party — July 2, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PIRATE PARTY: “WE’LL RUN THE PIRATE BAY FROM INSIDE PARLIAMENT”

Stockholm, Sweden — The Pirate Party issued a surprise election promise today, saying its future Members of Parliament will run the Pirate Bay from the inside of parliament itself. By doing this, they are invoking parliamentary immunity against prosecution for political work, giving the Pirate Bay complete legal immunity.

“Today, we are taking bold new steps to protect the next generation of entrepreneurs”, says Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Pirate Party. “By protecting the Pirate Bay from torrents of legal shelling, we would send a sending a strong signal to the world that Sweden is at the forefront of next generation’s services. Therefore, this is a loud and clear election promise.”

By issuing this election promise, the party turns running the Pirate Bay into political work, by definition — and Members of Parliament can never be prosecuted or sued for doing political work in parliament, as part of Sweden’s constitution.

“We cannot and will not accept the copyright industry’s systematic way of torpedoing our future entrepreneurs,” says Falkvinge. “Their legal carpet bombing should be illegal — professional saboteurs are professional criminals, regardless of where they get their paycheck.”

The Pirate Bay had trouble finding a stable Internet service provider this spring, before the Pirate Party stepped up to the plate and became the Pirate Bay’s new ISP. After that, the copyright lobby stepped back its harassment, not wanting to put the Pirate Party in the spotlight before the elections. Falkvinge comments:

“The Swedish Pirate Party is taking responsibility for Sweden’s future economy and entrepreneurship,” ends Falkvinge. “We show that not in words, but in personal action. Every day.”

For More Information:

Rick Falkvinge, phone +46 708 303600

See http://press.piratpartiet.se/ for publicity photos, stock footage, etc.

About the Pirate Party:

The Swedish Pirate Party was the largest party in the below-thirty group in the European Elections, taking two seats in the European Parliament, and will be contesting the September 19, 2010, parliamentary elections on all levels. It fights for civil rights and next-generation entrepreneurship.

ENDS

This sample press release, which portrays an authentic event that rendered good coverage in oldmedia in all conceivable languages from English to Thai to Greek to Chinese, leads us to the next point: be provocative. If you’re not making somebody angry, you’re probably not doing anything useful. Have fun and make your adversaries angry at the same time: this does not only lead to more activists in the swarm, as we saw in chapters 7 and 8, but it also makes you really enjoy your work in the swarm. Plus, it guarantees you a load of media. Oldmedia just love provocative.

Let’s take that again, because it is important: if you’re not making somebody angry, you’re probably not doing anything useful. Don’t be afraid of people yelling. That’s a sign you’re doing something right.

This particular sample press release wasn’t time sensitive — you will find that there are four types of press releases in terms of planning ahead:

The first kind is the reactive press release, when you’re responding to something that happens and you are providing comments. You should be prepared to send these 24/7, by keeping enough activists in some kind of virtual media room that knows how to handle oldmedia. If enough activists are there — say, some thirty activists (as per the group size rules we learned in chapter 3) — then enough of them will always be awake at any time of day to deal with incoming events. Trim the response time down to thirty minutes or less, and remember that people will want to polish it to no end, which costs time. Keep the spelling correct and the message good enough; time is of the essence here.

The second kind is when you comment on a large event, the time of which is known in advance, but not its outcome (such as an important court verdict). In this case, reporters will have multiple stories ready to run at a moment’s notice — the usual sixty minutes of lead time do not apply. You, too, should have multiple press releases ready to go, up to four different ones for different outcomes. Time to send must be below five minutes in this category, and ideally within 120 seconds. This means that one person must be selecting the appropriate prewritten release, filling in a couple of blanks (such as details from a court verdict), and posting/sending it immediately.

The third kind is when you tell oldmedia about something you will do later in the day, like when you stage rallies or send flowers to adversaries (“if you can’t convince them, confuse them”). The timing of this press release depends on your action. If oldmedia have the ability to send photographers to your action, you should send it early in the morning of the day in question, in time for the editorial morning meeting — if sent the night before, it would be an old press release by the morning meeting. In my experience, around 6:30 a.m. is a good time. On the other hand, if oldmedia cannot be expected to send photographers, you are expected to make photos and/or video from the event available yourself, which will vastly increase your chances of becoming a good story (compare the discussion in chapter 4 on filming rallies with a HD camera on a tripod). These kinds of press releases can be written in no rush the day or evening before and scheduled for release (using WordPress or similar) at 6:30 the next morning.

The fourth kind is when you remind oldmedia about something that you’re about to do. Reporters are people, and people need reminders when something important is about to happen. For a political party, this could be the election night dinner, where a press release about location, time, and accreditations could be sent fourteen days ahead of the election night, and then followed up with a reminder some seven days ahead.

It should be noted here that there are few instructions here concerning how you can tell oldmedia about what you think or feel in general, but there are instructions for telling them what you do. Oldmedia are not interested in what people think or feel; they are interested in what people do. There is some room for people commenting on what other people do, but there is never editorial room to say what people think without a context of somebody who did something.

(A notable exception to this is opinion pieces, so called op-eds, which we’ll return to later in this chapter.)

OWNING YOUR ISSUE IN OLDMEDIA

A key concept in dealing with oldmedia is “owning the issue.” Basically, it means that your swarm needs to be so tightly associated with the issues you drive or things you sell that whenever oldmedia come across a story on the topic, they call you for comments.

This is strategically crucial, and it can literally take years to get into this position if others are also fighting for that particular beachhead on the particular issue. The Swedish Pirate Party quickly owned the issue of file sharing in oldmedia, but it took years for us to own the bigger picture — that of privacy and civil liberties in legislation. Specifically, it took us from January 1, 2006, to June 18, 2008, when we staged unignorable rallies against a new sweeping surveillance law in Sweden.

Ideally, you want to get into a position where reporters of oldmedia call you regularly just to check if there’s any story on your topic that hasn’t been published yet. We were in this position for a week following the raid on the Pirate Bay on May 31, 2006, as we sat on a ton of material. When you’re being called like that and are able to give the reporters stories that haven’t been published yet, you’re basically in charge of the newsflow on your topic.

MEDIA BREAKTHROUGHS

Oldmedia won’t even mention a new swarm by name until it does something significant. Just existing and having opinions is not interesting. You will likely need to work diligently for several months before hitting an interesting breakthrough to oldmedia — the net is much, much quicker than oldmedia in discovering new talent.

When the oldmedia breakthrough happens, though, you will not miss it. It will quite likely coincide with an activist verticality that we discussed in chapter 7 — when a movement grows dramatically as a result of some big event, that’s always interesting to oldmedia. You will be on television every hour on the hour for a week across pretty much all channels, and there will be no end of invitations to submit op-ed articles large and small. (We’ll be returning to op-eds shortly.)

THE GANDHI SCALE IS ACCURATE

Gandhi once said, “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” This is eerily accurate in oldmedia’s portrayal of any disruptive or provocative swarm.

The results of this can be very counterintuitive. When you have been fighting through months and months of hard work to get any attention, and articles that portray you as stupid clowns start appearing in oldmedia, it is very easy and logical to feel disheartened. You need to know — to logically understand — that being ridiculed is a significant step forward from not being mentioned at all, and a necessary stepping-stone on the path to winning. We would talk about G2 articles, G3 articles, and G4 articles — G2 being level two on the Gandhi scale, an article ridiculing your swarm and your efforts.

WHO WRITES THE PRESS RELEASE?

As mentioned earlier, you will need a media subswarm of thirty people at the most. These people could reside in a chat channel of your choice — Skype, IRC, XMPP, Mumble, etc. — and should ideally be a mix of people that are active during different times of day, so you’ll statistically always have at least three people ready to respond to an event with a reactive press release.

This subswarm should be autonomous and have full authorization to speak independently on behalf of the swarm, just like individual activists have, as we discussed in chapter 4 about diversity. If you want a tradeoff, you can create a three-activist rule, that three people in the media subswarm need to approve a press release before sending it. However, named people should never be gatekeepers, as they can be unavailable for a myriad of reasons, and therefore bottlenecks.

One problem with such a group is that media responsibility is seen as a high-profile assignment — read “high-status” assignment — by one type of activists, and such people will tend to get themselves into the media group for the sake of being in the media group, rather than for working efficiently with oldmedia. You will need to make sure that people who become part of this subswarm are not blocking a position for somebody else that you’d rather have there.

AVATAR FACES OF THE SWARM

This leads us to the question about avatar faces of the swarm. When working with oldmedia, the swarm needs one outward face, and one face only. This would typically be the swarm leader or founder (you). It is important to realize that this is an avatar face — it is not you as a person, but a face that represents a larger and very specific movement.

We see this face in the sample press release earlier in this chapter: “Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Pirate Party, says….”

Several swarms have tried to abstain from having this avatar face, and they quickly discover that it works very poorly against oldmedia. Put simply, every swarm needs an avatar — an embodiment of the swarm — to get represented in oldmedia.

Very soon after a media breakthrough, some of the activists who joined the media group for the sake of being able to say they’re “working with the media” will demand that they should be the person speaking in the press release. After all, they wrote it, why shouldn’t they be the one speaking in it? (Some would describe such people as attention junkies. While derogatory, it describes the condition rather accurately from a purely lexical standpoint.)

At this point, it becomes important to remember that the function of a press release is to get the swarm’s name in oldmedia, and that it is the oldmedia rules that you need to play by. One organization, one face. There are exceptions, but those exceptions are so large and well-established that they won’t apply to your swarm.

On the contrary, you need to teach the media subswarm to write quotes and attribute them to you, the swarm leader or founder, for these reasons. If you’ve taken enough part in the media group and written enough press releases yourself, the subswarm will know the kind of things you say and be able to send out a press release with quotes in your name without needing you as a bottleneck. You’ll be amazed at how smart you can sound when you let other people make up the quotes you say without asking you first.

GETTING FACE TIME: BE WHERE THE CAMERAS ARE

As much as possible, you will want to be on location where the most important things to your swarm happen. “Sending somebody” is not enough — the avatar faces of the swarm, typically you, have to be at the most important events. There are several reasons for you being there personally.

The first reason is that if you witnessed firsthand what happened, you are able to report on it, discuss it, and debate it in the first person. This is crucial for credibility; saying “I was there, and you weren’t” wins major points in any debate. The second reason is that you’ll want your own media footage of important events, with the swarm’s avatar face in it, to make such footage available as stock cutaways for oldmedia later.

But the third and crucial reason, if there are TV news crews there, is that those TV crews will be looking for some footage worth their while. They will likely have set up their camera well in advance, trimming light and sound, and then doing nothing but waiting for whatever-it-is to happen. If your swarm is seen as owning the issue of what’s happening at this location, getting TV time is usually as easy as walking up to the TV crews, introducing yourself, handing over a business card, and saying, “If you’d like me to comment on what’s happening here, I’d be happy to do so.” Don’t be any kind of pushy — media crews hate that — but be friendly and simply tell them that you’re here and available.

More often than not, they’ll jump at the opportunity of getting your comment right away. After all, it’s much-better-spent time for them to get your comments than just wait around and get absolutely nothing produced. The win for you, obviously, is that your comment goes to the cutting board of the TV evening news — and more often than not, a comment of yours makes it to the broadcast, just from you walking up to the TV crews and saying hi.

SCORING THOSE OP-EDS

An op-ed is usually a full-page print in a newspaper. It is not news reporting, but an opinion piece; it can be regarded as a blog post in oldmedia, and it has quite a bit of reach. (The word “op-ed” has a very simple explanation: it stands for opposite editorial page, as op-eds were traditionally printed there.)

Newspapers usually try to get interesting talking points about current events on these pages, and it can be a great way for your swarm to be seen. There are basically four different opportunities for getting an op-ed into a newspaper.

But before we start looking at those four different ways, let’s address one thing that’s in common between all of them: you never, ever send an op-ed to more than one newspaper in some kind of hope of getting it published in more than one location. Newspapers hate people who do that. You pick one paper that you think will have the right reach and audience, and then address that newspaper only. If they decline to publish, you are free to move on to other papers, and only then.

The first kind of opportunity for getting op-eds is when there’s something big and public coming up, or an anniversary of some significant event, or anything that prompts a specific subject to be discussed on that date that you know of well in advance. This is typically the easiest route for new players. One to three weeks ahead of the date you aim for, you mail the editorial office and pitch a subject for their op-ed page. You do that by explaining what you want to write about, why you want to write about it on that particular date, and give them the first part of your intended op-ed article, so they get a feel for your message and writing style. Include the subject in the subject line of the mail.

Here’s an example from when I successfully pitched an op-ed for the first day of the trial against the operators of the Pirate Bay:

TO: oped@newspaper.com

SUBJECT: The Pirate Bay trial: “Political Trial of the Decade”

DATE: February 9, 2009

Dear Editor,

Considering the trial against the operators of the Pirate Bay that begins in a week, on February 16, I’d like to submit an op-ed with this title and introduction, for publication before the trial, as close to the first date of the trial as possible. Would you find this interesting?

Sincerely,

[signature]

Political Trial of the Decade

This Monday, the largest political trial of the decade begins in Sweden — probably the largest political trial since the IB trials in the 1970s. In one corner of the ring, we find the Catholic Church, trying to ban the printing press at any cost, this new machine that threatens the monopolies of the Church over knowledge and culture. In the other corner, we find those who have given culture and knowledge to the people. In the jury box, we find the feudal lords who lend their power to the Church, and who are rewarded in turn by the Church telling ordinary people to obey their feudal lords.

Even though the scene above comes from France in the 1500s, the exact same scene will take place in the District Court of Stockholm, beginning on February 16. The power play is identical, the upheaval of structures as large. Only the players are different.

If the editors are interested, as they were with the pitch above, they will respond by asking for a word count and give you a deadline for delivery of the final piece. You need to adhere almost religiously to this word count, and it is usually shorter than you think: you will need to shorten, shorten, and shorten your message again.

Once you’re known to the newspapers and you know their desired word count in advance, you could also send your entire article at once, reducing the workload need for a roundtrip. The easier you make it for newspapers, the more they like you.

Your reward for playing by the oldmedia rules is that you get a large audience for your message. You usually don’t get paid. Don’t expect to get paid, and don’t ask. Your payment is exposure of your message to their audience.

The second kind of opportunity for op-eds is when somebody else gets an op-ed published that you vehemently disagree with. This provides an opportunity for a response from you on the op-ed page. Responses are much shorter than the initial op-ed, but it still gets your swarm’s name and message out there. You still have to ask for it, and this is somewhat harder to get if you’re unknown.

The third kind of opportunity for op-eds is practically impossible to score unless you’re already an established player. That opportunity is reactive — as in, submitting the op-ed in response to a large news event that just occurred. Newspapers will welcome op-eds that discuss current events, but usually only from people and organizations who are already well-known. Speed is absolutely essential here — if you can respond in seconds on Twitter when a newspaper asks for an op-ed there, you can still score it. (Most don’t ask on Twitter from the editorial oldmedia accounts, but some individual editors do from theirs.)

Finally, during those intense breakthrough moments when you’re in the center of attention, it happens that you get requests for op-eds by oldmedia. Always try your utmost to fulfill these requests, keep the word count that is requested, and deliver before the deadline. This sends the message that you’re reliable when oldmedia asks you to provide content for them, and will give you more opportunities down the line.

SET UP A PRESS CENTER

Finally, you’ll also need to set up a press center. In all simplicity, this is somewhere where reporters can go and download pictures of you for publication, get action shots of the organization’s activities, get stock footage from your rallies, and look at an archive of your press releases. (A simple WordPress blog is excellent for this purpose, which is another benefit to using WordPress as a press release launcher as described earlier.)

You remember the footage from rallies that we discussed in chapter 4? When we discussed setting up HD cameras on tripods? The results of that need to go into the press center. As does the footage from high-profile events we discussed above, publicity photos, high-resolution images of your logo, and any fact boxes that you want oldmedia to repeat verbatim when they describe your swarm. You’ll find that having this available without asking means that oldmedia makes a lot more stories about you, when they can splice in stock footage from your activities into their reporting. If you don’t provide such footage…well, they’ll make a story about somebody else.

Don’t forget to include bios and high-resolution photos of any people you want to profile.

The address to this press center should be at the bottom of every single press release, and it should be as simple as http://press.yourswarm.org or http://www.yourswarm.org/press.

 

(This article is part of the final edit of the book manuscript. It is Creative Commons, CC-BY-NC.)

 

EXCERPT FROM PUBLISHED BOOK

This is a part of the book Swarmwise, available for purchase from Amazon (US, UK) or for download as PDF. It is an instruction manual for recruiting and leading tens of thousands of activists on a mission to change the world for the better, without having access to money, resources, or fame. The book is based on Falkvinge’s experiences in leading the Swedish Pirate Party into the European Parliament, starting from nothing, and covers all aspects of leading a swarm of activists into mainstream success.

The Question Was Never “How Do We Make Sure Artists Are Paid”. It Was Always “How Do We Ensure Art Is Made And Available”.

Copyright Monopoly: The copyright monopoly was never intended to ensure income for a particular group of people. This is a common false counterargument in the copyright monopoly debate, even among people who agree that the current monopoly is beyond insane: “but we must find a way to ensure that artists are compensated for their work”. This is simply a thoroughly false statement; the goal of policymaking is to ensure art is created and available to the public, and whether somebody is paid for it is completely beside the point.

This argument about rewarding creators of art is a very common way of trying to derail a discussion about the copyright monopoly. Regardless of the logical dishonesty in defending a system that locks 99.995% of artists away from any royalty with the argument that “artists must get paid”, and then steals most of the rest of the money from the 0.005% of the artists, it’s still a recurring argument. The problem is that it is utterly false and a diversion; compensating artists monetarily was never a goal with the copyright monopoly.

As I’ve written before, nobody is entitled to any compensation for any amount of work, ranging from minuscule to infinite. The only thing that entitles an entrepreneur – artists included – to any kind of compensation is a sale.

When no sales are made, is this a problem for an artist? Undoubtedly so. Sometimes even tragic. But does that make it a problem for the entire world? There are three answers to that question: No, no, and no, in that order.

No trade ever had special laws guaranteeing its income, especially not against the progress of technology. When households got electricity in the 1920s, and the biggest industry in most European and American cities went belly-up in a few years – the icemaking industry – nobody asked for a refrigerator fee, despite many personal tragedies.

Going back to the specifics of the copyright monopoly, the US Constitution is positively crystal clear in its justification for the existence of the copyright monopoly:

…to promote the progress of science and the useful arts…

Do you see anything about securing income for any particular group in society there? No? That’s because it’s not there. It was never a goal.

The copyright monopoly is a balance between two competing interests: the public’s interest in having new culture and knowledge produced, and the same public’s interest in having access to culture and knowledge. The public is the only stakeholder in the copyright monopoly construct. The only stakeholder. Somebody’s income or non-income does not factor into it.

So the problems that needs to be solved are two: how we make sure that new culture gets created, and how me make sure that this culture is available to the public at large. How somebody gets compensated is not a problem on the table.

(At this point, several people would argue that no culture would get made if people aren’t compensated for making it. That statement is blatantly false, as proven by successful authors like Cory Doctorow, whose books are free to copy. As are mine. Once you realize that successful authors do earn money even with rampant copying, you can relax the neurotic “every copy must be controlled” attitude. But even if they didn’t, that would still not be an argument to give up freedoms of speech, the press, assembly, and expression online.)