[Chapter-delegates] What should ISOC's future goals be? How can we work toward achieving them as ISOC Chapters?

[Veni Markovski]

Fun fact, Alexander: ISOC Bulgaria got a tiny funding (smallest possible, I
guess) for a project exactly on disinformation, related to Covid-19…
As someone, who among the experts of the High-Level Expert Group on fake
news and online disinformation to the European Commission, I find the
argument, which you quote as mind boggling. Now, of course, there is a
possibility that ISOC and the Foundation are late in reflecting the fact
that disinformation is not “politically complicated”; if it were, the EU
commission would not have created such a group, and the online platforms
would not have passed the Code of Good Practices to avoid some of the
consequences of online disinformation… but that’s another topic.

On Mon, Sep 27, 2021 at 16:22 Alexander Blom via Chapter-delegates <
chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Hi John,
>
> Sure, a summary of a project we recently submitted twice (with some
> changes) and was refused twice:
>
> Project Summary:Like in many countries, disinformation in the online
> political debate is rampant in the Netherlands. Politicians and journalists
> alike are obsessed by the short term news cycle, reducing any news story to
> a simple black and white affair without taking into account the nuances,
> the history or their own involvement. This has manifested itself never more
> strongly than in the scandal around child care benefits, the
> "Toeslagenaffaire", which resulted in the extremely harsh treatment of some
> 2200 mostly immigrant familie by the tax authorities, a toppled government
> and a post-election scandal. It is now subject of an upcoming parliamentary
> inquiry, with preliminary investigations in the fall of 21, and public
> hearings scheduled for spring '22.Together with the departments of
> Philosophy and Dutch Studies from the University of Amsterdam, the ISOCNL
> Critical Thinking Working Group (CTWG) will train a number of students and
> journalists to discover and flag fake news stories and political statements
> around the parliamentary inquiry. The result of their work will then be
> brought to the attention of the public through a social media campaign,
> using the very same channel where many get their (false) information.The
> aim is to restore some faith in the internet as a trustworthy source of
> information and at the same provide ISOC Chapers with a disinformation
> toolbox to combat fake news in their own countries.
> The comment I thought inappropriate: "while the application was extremely
> well written and thought out, the issue is very politically complicated and
> does not fit within the objectives of the program objectives and does not
> align with ISOC and Foundation’s goals" Here the judge decides that the
> subject of fake news should not be touched by SOC? Fake news is an
> international concern, the subject of one of the new SIG's that were
> just suggested and very much alive with many chapters. (a fellow board
> member of mine was invited to speak at a meeting from the Benin Chapter,
> expressly on this subject)
>
> My problem with the refusals is that nobody seemed to consider the good
> that would have come out of this project: closer ties between ISOCNL and
> the University of Amsterdam, internationally available course material, a
> social media campaign on fake news, a number of trained and somewhat
> experienced annotators, a boost for ISOCNL in general etc. and all this for
> just 30k. Instead, the judges were looking for what might go wrong: not
> enough effect on the elections (for 30k, what were they expecting?), not
> aligned with the US head office, starting a little later than expected etc,
> all petty reasons in my opinion.
>
> Especially when there are not enough chapter proposals to finish
> the available budget, this seems foolish.
>
> Anyone who wants to get full details on both projects can PM me.
>
> Met vriendelijke groet,
> Kind regards
>
> Alexander Blom
> CEO/owner
>
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>
> Op ma 27 sep. 2021 om 21:30 schreef John Levine <isocmember at johnlevine.com
> >:
>
>> It appears that Alexander Blom via Chapter-delegates <
>> alexander.blom at budgetphone.nl> said:
>> >
>> >We seem to arrive at opposite conclusions, where you (and Andrew)
>> attribute
>> >the modest total amount of grant funding for chapters to the lack of
>> >applications, and my chapters' experiences are the opposite, namely the
>> >foundation steadfastly refusing our applications, one after the other.
>>
>> Could you give us some examples of projects for which you have applied
>> for funding and the Foundation said no?
>>
>> R's,
>> John
>>
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-- 

Best regards,
Veni Markovski
http://www.veni.com
pgp: 5BA1366E veni at veni.com
<http://www.veni.com/>

The opinions expressed above are those of the author,
not of any organizations, associated with or related to
the author in any given way.
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