Social Media: Education is Always Better than Sanction

I originally wrote this for my Akin Consults Blog, however, whilst I was catching up on reading material that I usually share on Twitter by taking the headline, the URL and adding a short opinion of mine, I happened on this article 26 Internet safety talking points, it to me is one of the best articulated views on Internet usage and policing, some of which will apply to the topic covered further on in this blog.

I have because of this update changed the title of the blog to reflect these ideas and I think anyone who uses the Internet or anyone who is involved in formulating Internet policy will find these talking points quite useful.

Social media – the fall guy

Over the last couple of months, social media and by that I mean the use of Facebook, Twitter and Blogs has taken a bad rap in Nigeria.

From politicians uncomfortable the ease of access, freedom of expression, unrelenting scrutiny with the attendant abuse that would put Mosaic curses in the shade through its use by swindlers, kidnappers and murderers for incomprehensible ends.

The same social media has been exploited for political advantage too, for engaging the youth in the political process, for aspects of good and sometimes bad propaganda, for crowd-funding, crowd-sourcing and the dissemination of ideas.

The problem is use

However, it is the tragic case of Cynthia Osokogu that brings to the fore elements of usage that we need to very aware of. The young lady apparently met two men while interacting on Facebook, began a business transaction with them that involved her travelling to Lagos where she was picked up, drugged, raped, beaten up, murdered and then dumped in a mortuary where her family finally discovered her.

Fundamentally, the problem here is not social media, or Facebook in particular, Facebook just served as a medium of communication that could have been achieved by other means though maybe not with the same ease.

The problem with the use and I emphasise the word use of Facebook is people have by reason of the ease of interaction lowered the thresholds of trust they have such that they probably do not go through more stringent steps of ascertaining and verification of activities they get involved in.

Before social media they existed

Before any of the social media we have today, swindlers, confidence tricksters, kidnappers and murderers existed just as there were people to be taken advantage of through foolishness, ignorance, naivety or vulnerability.

We so easily let our guard down hoping that the social media vehicle we are using will take up the slack and do the vetting for us but there is no substitute for doing the basic things of not meeting strangers outside your comfort zone, informing people of what you are up to, documenting whatever you are involved in and taking a friend with you if need be for your safety.

When I am going to meet strangers, I always leave a sheet of paper on my table with all the contact details along with a backup element that can be found if there is a need for that.

Some basic analogies

The analogies to use are simple – you do not because you have bought a new knife use it recklessly, you are probably going to be more careful with its use lest you cut yourself. Likewise, the ease of communication offered by social media should have your suspicious and alert mechanisms at their most primed to ensure you are not sucked into a vulnerable situation from which you cannot extract yourself.

In the same vein, you do not because you have a fast car put your foot down on the accelerator and go over a cliff with glee, with a fast car comes better brakes and better control – if those controls are used wisely, you are in a safer vehicle for it protections rather than for its speed. Likewise, the ease with which you can share information should inform the carefulness involved in keeping some of that information back

Common-sense with social media

I have always worked on a simple principle – If in DOUBT, keep it OUT – there is just no need to dump all that information out there just as you do not have your home as thoroughfare for the public to walk through at will without restraint.

We are naturally careful about our private information, it should not be different from our adoption of social media and like our mothers used to say when were kids – Don’t take sweets from strangers – the same principle should apply to anywhere we interact with strangers – we do not know them well enough to trust them and God only knows what they have in mind for us.

Conversely, we should try to believe the best of everyone whilst retaining a modicum of suspicion, it does not have to border on paranoia, but a healthy dose of paranoia is not bad or the principle of personal safety and the possible elimination of dangerous situations.

The real problem

Without making little of the tragedy that befell Cynthia Osokogu, social media is not the problem, it has never been the problem, it the use of or the lack of knowledge of the common-sense uses of social media that is the problem and that is where people need the most education that it should not lower the needs to ascertain, determine, verify and be careful about the people we interact with and it cannot carry the burdens of trust and trustworthiness that come from being streetwise, smart and discerning of character, aims and intentions.

We once had letters, then telephones, then telegrams, then telex, then facsimile machines, then mobile phones and now the smorgasbord of easy communication untethered and free – we are however still human and have not metamorphosed into cyborgs – it means those very basic human characteristics still matter and years from now newer modes of communication will be created and hopefully human-beings will know not to abandon their gut instincts for the thrill of technology.

To Cynthia Osokogu – Rest in peace – no know can begin to think of the harrowing experiences you went through as those men took your life and to your family my heartfelt condolences.

Opinion: You're Nobody Without A Name

Of reputational value

Almost 10 years ago, I went on a walk around my neighbourhood with my uncle as he lamented the apparent disobedience of his sons to obey an order he had given.

I could sympathise with him at the same time that I was strongly disagreeing with the premise of his irritation.

His sons being European citizens resident for just about a decade in England were instructed to send a letter of invitation to a distant cousin of theirs, which they refused to comply with, the circumstances of which I will not delve into but the fundamentals remain the same.

Unlike anywhere else, your name, your address and all your dealings in the West make up your reputational value that determines your credit rating for credit worthiness and other issues of integrity.

Your name is all that matters

Especially, in circumstances where you are legally resident and gainfully employed, you want to be in control of all the variables that make up your reputational value and most especially the people you decide to vouch for as referees, guarantors, sureties or witnesses.

My cousins had in their time in Europe understood this very salient point that they were ready to defy patriarchal authority to protect what many might think is intangible but is of the utmost importance to their livelihood, integrity and reputation – especially in an era where background checks are becoming quite standard for things as mundane as basic employment contracts.

A tarnished name by reason of acts of omission, inadvertent activity or unfortunate circumstance of some misfortune can take more than a decade to repair, the price for such a lapse in judgement, process or attention to the minutiae is just too high to expend on the apparent mundane act of writing a letter of invitation for a relation that can be vouched for by your father – the stakes are too high and in my view the boys were right – reputation counts, integrity counts and perception counts, always.

Farouk Lawan

This brings me to two recent events that Nigerians will be familiar with, the first relates to the Fuel Subsidy probe conducted by an ad-hoc committee of the House of Representatives.

We were literally glued to every communication device we could find that relayed the proceedings of that committee headed by Farouk Lawan who in the chair achieved almost hagiographic levels of praise for exposing the corrupt enterprise that was a nexus of government institutions, political appointees and private companies siphoning untold amounts of money to the tune of 10 times more than had been budgeted for by the Federal Government, it was an unprecedented scam that threatened to drag the name of the Presidency into the muck.

As it transpired a report was published and as it was being deliberated on, Farouk Lawan asked for the House to exculpate two companies because the committee had lately received fresh evidence on that matter. The House obliged.

Unbeknownst to us, a sting operation apparently engineered with the security agencies involving principals of the exculpated companies had successfully mired Farouk Lawan in a corrupt transaction that purportedly had him recorded on video collecting moneys from an oil baron in the dead of the night.

Lost on all fronts

Whatever plans Farouk Lawan might have had to expose the attempts of persons close to the Presidency to suborn legislative process and cast aspersions on the report he helped pen came to naught when those persons went public before him and then he did not immediately quash the rumours, he dissimulated, he deigned, he confessed and then spun tales.

His fight back was timid at best, but his reputation had been done irreparable damage and the report we had so greatly lauded was about to go down the drain with him.

The House of Representatives has done the minimum possible to restore the integrity of the report by censuring Farouk Lawan, deposing him and restoring the exculpated companies to the original indictments made in the report.

Ideally, I would have preferred the House of Representatives audit that report independently against the originally collected evidence and then reissue it, but that is a matter of process and procedure.

Perceptions on reputation

The second concerns people I respect and engage with, mostly on Twitter but in certain instances we have communicated through other channels.

They have not reached the point where their integrity and reputation is irredeemable but this and Farouk Lawan’s situation highlights how differently we tackle these matters between those of us in Diaspora and those of us back home in Nigeria.

Whereas, we in Diaspora will put in place systems, processes and safeguards to ensure that nothing ever touches the issues of our person, our character, our integrity, our reputation and every perception of our standing, our people back home are more poised to wait to defend the same when it comes under attack but risk losing the battle of hearts and minds when they are not prompt, forceful and immediate in disputing all assertions and aspersions.

This is not to confirm the presence of an impropriety, in fact, there is probably none and the circumstances within which they work and operate might impact on their ability to respond as promptly as might be required.

My view on Dana Crash Action

Once again, I find myself sympathising and even understanding but disagreeing with their approach to reputational and integrity issues, these are not matters to be trifled with and to tackle the same with deference to a few, seeming indifference to some and possibly arrogance bordering on hubris to others with the view that they are being so principled and above reproach is to misunderstand the considerable fallout that might ensue from this matter.

Much more than Dana Crash Action rests on how the principals respond to the attempts to besmirch their good names, their humanitarian efforts, the friends they interact and associate with, and each subsequent worthwhile campaign launched in spite of and despite the government on Social Media.

I have been informed a comprehensive report debunking all claims and assertions will be released at the end of the month.

However, it is not a matter of being answerable to anyone or being accountable to anyone, it is one of being seen to be accountable regardless, acting transparently regardless, doing that promptly regardless, protecting the present and future reputational value above all else and at the same time learning one serious lesson from Farouk Lawan that no matter the hundreds of millions of dollars that oil companies will pay in fines and restitution with regards to the fuel subsidy scam, a man’s honour and integrity is still priceless.

You are nobody without a name.

Need to finish this Masters course

The course itself

Having completed the core part of my academic studies for a Master of Science in Information Technology, I have found that I have somewhat ground to a halt in terms of commencing and completing my thesis.

So far, the coursework covered Computer Structures, Project Management for IT, E-Commerce, Security Engineering, Computer Communications, Advanced Topics in IT (Human Interfaces, Distance Learning, Agents & Wireless Computing), Computer Forensics and Object Oriented Java Programming.

Privacy, Security and Trust

Throughout the course, I have been quite sensitive to the issues of security and privacy, one area I felt I could work in was an aspect of developing algorithms for creating and determining levels of trust beyond just challenge/response authentication.

For instance, we know the standard answers to questions like address, date of birth or mother's maiden name. All this kind of information can easily be taken from your rubbish bins especially if you do not shred all traceable material that you throw away.

Shred it all

I always shred every addressed paper before recycling, windowed envelopes in the Netherlands have postcode franking pertaining to a particular address, our entrance bells would usually have our names then link that to the fact that it is business envelope a particular company.

You can begin to build a profile, or at least, you have given the miscreant a head start of sorts.

However, if the questions change to knowledge-based information like what buses go past your house? If you have lived somewhere for 5 years, you can hardly be oblivious of that. Probably, your age you next 2 birthdays or colour of your front door - use the responses, response times and correctness to establish a threshold of acceptable trustworthiness proving you are communicating with the said person.

What to do?

All sorts of ideas running around in my head but I have hit the proverbial writer's block, I do not think I would be able to develop enough material in this area for an M.Sc., it appears the ideas and material are more suited for an M.A. or M.Phil - this because I need to develop test scenarios for the theories I propound.

Being a freelance consultant, it I difficult to latch onto some project where I work and adapt it for the purposes of a Masters programme, in fact, since there is no sponsorship the free agency can have you a bit listless.

I suppose another concern is simply that my coursework puts me in line for a distinction; I must get an A in the thesis to confirm that - the times that drive us at time can be so silly.

Like some friends would say, get on with it, I suppose it is now time to finish this thing and move on to the next project.