Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1213458
16 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 23 FEBRUARY 2020 OPINION Evarist Bartolo Evarist Bartolo is minister of foreign affairs and trade promotion AT the start of World War Two, the Morse code was seen as an advanced communications system in the battlefield. By the end of the war, technology was al- ready in place that could work through very complicated mathematical com- putations with the aim of camouflaging communication, rendering it accessible only to the intended recipient in battle. That gruesome war, fought in the fields, the sea and the air, became increasingly reliant on fledgling computer warfare. If you had to fast-forward 50 years from then, war and power continued to be perceived in terms of securing, occupy- ing and gaining territory. But things are changing. Power is taking a new form – and rather than a thirst for territory and imposition of authority, power is now taking shape in a completely new form that we've only just started to understand: mass online influence, fuelled by the af- fordances of big data. Since time immemorial, influence has been synonymous with power. Courtiers were deemed powerful figures because their advice could influence the decision of the prince or king. But mass influence works differently – it is the ability of one entity or individual to influence a huge number of people. And it can be abused – to devastating effect. We now live in the age of mass influence. I'm not talking about a celebrity influenc- er on Instagram trying to convince you to buy skin cream. Think of organisations being able to influence you through tac- it messaging, camouflaged communica- tion processes and sponsored posts that morph seemingly innocuously online – on your Facebook timeline, for instance. The American scholar Shoshana Zuboff positions Internet giants like Google and Facebook within a surveillance capitalism framework. This works by providing free services to billions of people, enabling the providers of those services to monitor the behaviour of those users in detail – often without their explicit consent – and then monetising such behaviour to those or- ganisations prepared to pay for the data. When the online influence process is weaponised, it can be as powerful in its ability to reach its aims as much as bombs, guns and tanks. The fact that we have not yet fully understood the me- chanics and dynamics of what constitutes online influence and power makes it even more dangerous. In many societies around us, including ours, we have left important elements such as critical thinking and digital litera- cy out of the priority list in our education system, and this has gone on for decades. Now this vulnerability is exposed, more than ever, by the prospect of mass influ- ence on social media, especially the nefar- ious kind. Social media organisations respond by assuring us that they are spending mil- lions of dollars to better combat govern- ments and political groups using their platforms to spread false and misleading information. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook employed 35,000 people to review online content and implement se- curity measures. Yet many doubt that the unilateral checks and balances in place by platforms are enough to diminish the risk of political weaponisation: large sums of money are still being invested to spread lies and fake news and destroy reputa- tions. The emergence of technologies such as artificial intelligence might prom- ise new ways of mitigating known risks: they may also make the situation worse. In the immediate future, the only option available to mitigate the significant risks is the regulation of social media plat- forms. And there simply is no appetite for this, especially beyond Europe. We are no longer within the remit of one or two growth hackers going a bit off the chart – the process has been indus- trialised. Organisations with thousands of people are part of this whole process aimed at distorting facts and raising doubt when there should reasonably be none. I am not exaggerating when I consider the online space to be the new theatre of influence and power, with the physical in- frastructure of the battlefield replaced by algorithms and big data. We need to step up our efforts, at least in the European Union where our voice can be influential, so that real solutions can be found. This may also mean lim- iting some online practices of influential Silicon Valley social media platforms. We need to take stock, and reflect on what is happening. In the last decade we've seen the reality that there are banks which are too big to fail. In this decade we are facing the reality of platforms too big to be left to their own devices. Christopher Cutajar Christopher Cutajar is Permanent Secretary, Transport Ministry EVERY single day 3,500 people lose their lives on the roads of this planet. Road safety is a matter which should concern all and sundry. We all have our obligations when using the road. Road safety in Europe is estimated to have progressed comparatively better than in other regions of the world. Needless to say, the latter does not mean that we should rest on our laurels. We can only say that we have reached our goal once we no longer experience serious injuries or fatalities on our roads. Over the last week I attended the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety, which is aimed at establishing new targets for 2030 and assess the pro- gress achieved so far. This Conference was held in Sweden's capital city Stock- holm, where ministers, government rep- resentatives, NGOs and international firms were invited to speak their mind. Russia and Brazil had already organised similar world conferences in 2009 and 2015, respectively. Therefore this con- ference served to renew the commitment towards less fatalities and serious injuries on the road. To this end, the Stockholm Declaration clearly depicts what is to be done by the various stakeholders. Malta's contribution in this field proved to be really valuable and is highly ac- claimed among European leaders active in this field. All the EU Transport Minis- tries sealed their commitment by means of the Valletta Declaration on Road Safe- ty, which was agreed upon in our capi- tal city in March 2017, during Malta's Presidency of the European Council. The commitment shown through this declaration, amongst other things, bids to reduce by half the serious injuries on the road by 2030, when compared to the amount of accidents which will be regis- tered for 2020. Malta's commitment at a European lev- el also reverberates among the Common- wealth countries. In fact, the Ministry for Transport in Malta is also active in the Commonwealth Road Safety Initiative, chaired by His Royal Highness Michael of Kent, with the full involvement of the Towards Zero Foundation. This initia- tive is aiming to promote the reduction of loss of life caused by road accidents, with a special focus on youth. Such mat- ters will be raised on the agenda of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which will be held in Kigali, Rwanda, next June. Our commitment is not only shown by means of international declarations. Building pedestrian bridges like the one at Mrieħel and others currently under construction such as the one in Blata l-Bajda and Ħal Luqa, clearly demon- strate the infrastructural investment tak- ing place to support road safety among various road users. In order to keep on making our roads safer, we need to con- tinue addressing all the aspects related to this domain. This means that we need to have an attentive eye towards road safety man- agement; make our roads safer for the road users; ensure that the vehicles we are driving are designed with the high- est level of safety features; instil more responsibility among road users; keep on educating about correct behaviour on the road and keep on improving the servic- es provided by our emergency response teams, who are already doing a great job out there. Road safety matters involve the contri- bution of many hard-working people and of all our road users. Improvements have already been accomplished in the past and this augurs well for all those who are expected to contribute in order to reach the ambitious targets set out for the com- ing decade. Our roads should not direct us towards life-threatening experiences, but should instead serve to connect our communi- ties and make our lives easier. 'Like' and 'Share' are the new guns and tanks Road safety matters