Digital Humanism and Transparent Automated Content Moderation

Image courtesy of Barry Bradlyn

By Lucía Sánchez, EUC Research Assistant and PhD Student in Spanish Literatures and Cultures

On September 21, the TU Vienna Digital Humanism Initiative and the European Union Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign hosted a faculty workshop on Transparent Automated Content Moderation with the collaboration of Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien). Professors and researchers from both TU Wien (Peter Knees, Julia Neidhardt, Allan Hanbury and Anna Marakasova) and UIUC (Barry Bradlyn, Eshwar Chandrasekharan, and Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe) were in attendance.

While bearing a similarity to Digital Humanities and sharing some of the research approaches to humanities with tools of the digital realm, Digital Humanism is best labelled as a new kind of humanism, as Peter Knees remarked during the workshop. As described on the Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism, this interdisciplinary approach “describes, analyzes, and, most importantly, influences the complex interplay of technology and humankind, for a better society and life, fully respecting universal human rights”. Digital Humanism encompasses discussions of AI, democracy, ethics, information technology and data systems, as can be seen in TU Vienna Digital Humanism recently published volume Perspectives on Digital Humanism. 

Anna Marakasova, a pre-doctoral researcher from TU Wien, presented the Transparent Automated Content Moderation (TACo) project, led by Allan Hanbury. This project focuses on toxic language in social media and is motivated by the problems of online moderation. The novelty of this project is that it has a user-centric, bottom-up approach. The research for the TACo project is developed from a user perspective, with the starting point of the project being the identification of what is considered toxic talk by the citizens of Vienna. Moreover, this project emphasizes not only the definition or detection of negative content, but the importance of respectful content that fosters constructive discussions and a deliberative public sphere. 

The UIUC professors participating in this workshop described the similar concerns that guide their own research projects, specifically, the issues regarding the classification of toxic online discussions as well as content moderation. Barry Bradlyn, Assistant Professor of Physics, investigates the flow of cross-platform hate speech and hateful images and memes by mapping out the networks through which they propagate. Eshwar Chandrasekharan, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, is the lead of the Social Computing Laboratory (SCUBA), which aims to make the internet a safer and more welcoming place, with one of his interests being re-aligning systems towards promoting positive behavior. Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, Professor and Coordinator for Information Literacy Services and Instruction at the University Library, is the Co-Director of the AI and Society Research Cluster, an interdisciplinary group interested in issues related to ethics, privacy, and the use of AI in media disinformation.

As Jonathan Larson, Associate Director of the EUC, indicated in the opening statements for the workshop, one of the objectives of the EUC is to facilitate connections between UIUC and other academic institutions in Europe. As an example, between 2017 and 2019, the EUC received a grant to collaborate with the Center for European Studies (CES) at KU Leuven on the Conversation on Transatlanticism and Europe (CEURO) project. CEURO featured a joint synchronous, virtual course in which both students and professors on professors on both sides of the Atlantic participated, as well as a Spring School (student exchange) and other activities such as roundtables, workshops, and a blog.

UIUC has a study abroad presence in TU Vienna through the Illinois in Vienna Programs (IiVP) study abroad programs, which include other Austrian universities such as the University of Vienna, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, and the Vienna University of Economic and Business. This workshop emerged in part from a recent project of the EUC in conjunction with LAS International Programs to start an online course involving multiple study abroad centers in Europe. This course, EURO 199, was offered in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, and was focused on the concept of smart cities, as well as how this concept is instantiated in Vienna, Paris, Granada, and Rome. Through these existing ties between UIUC and TU Wien, the EUC came to know of the Digital Humanism Initiative.

Digital Humanism and Transparent Automated Content Moderation

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On Vikings and White Nationalism

By Essam Abdelrasul Bubaker Elkorghli, PhD Student in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership

Why do white nationalists in many of the protests seen across the United States of America in recent years proudly carry signs associated with Vikings and old Icelandic runes? Why have right-wing political entities embraced white-centric nostalgia? How does our identity-centric discourse perpetuate forms of techno-politics that capitalistically grant the freedom and platform for white nationalists? Though not articulated in this particular way, Professor Verena Höfig’s talk, organized by the European Union Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, addressed these issues that threaten diversity, question freedom, and impede democracy.

Professor Höfig commenced with asking the hard question: “How could it be that symbols derived from the Viking Age and the Middle Ages are nowadays almost automatically understood as references to racist ideologies in the United States?” She then displayed visuals of what white nationalists wear in their demonstrations. For example, the odal rune — which was used as a badge of honor by the SS during World War II and has become an identifying emblem for National Socialists in the U.S. — was recognized by some in the shape of a stage used at the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The CPAC organizers were extremely slow in responding to allegations that they used the symbol despite knowing the racist connotations associated with it, and no sign of remorse or an expression of apology were annunciated.

Furthermore, it was quite fascinating seeing Professor Höfig's analysis of the notorious QAnon man, Jake Angeli, who illegally entered the Capitol building on the 6th day of 2021. Höfig, who has expertise in the material culture of the Viking Age, focused on the Scandinavian symbols tattooed on Angeli's body. These included a Valknutr symbol, known from early medieval art to signify the willingness of a warrior to be sacrificed in battle, the World-Tree, Yggdrasill, and Thor’s hammer, which per se is not a symbol carrying any political meaning, but in combination with Angeli's other tattoos, such as one depicting Trump’s border wall, can be understood as a symbol of white power. However, as Höfig pointed out, the symbols themselves do not originally carry such connotations; rather, they have been usurped by white nationalists. So, we must interrogate why these particular symbols have been co-opted.

There is a modicum of iconic symbolism associated with political nostalgia. To many, Viking symbols signify strong men who contested and championed forms of expansions and exerted influence over various territories. The essentialist image of a Viking person is a white, (hyper)masculine colonist. Within such imagery, there lies an amalgamation of the ethos of nostalgia: pure, white, strong, influencing territories, and exclusive to that particular group and culture; does not recognize diversity nor celebrates it. This sentiment is transnational, where on one continent we saw “Make America Great Again” and “Jews will not replace us” (in Charlottesville 2017) and on the other, we observed the exponential rise and legitimization of right-wing exclusionary politics across Europe, because of the fear of the ‘other’. The implication of such sentiment is the formation and opening of various branches across the U.S. of new religious movements, such as the Asatru Folk Assembly, or political networks such as the so-called Wotan Network, where the latter co-funded a mission by the identitarian group Defend Europe to intercept migrants leaving from Libya’s shores to prevent them from reaching Europe. So, the usage of Medieval Scandinavian and Viking Age symbols insinuates a form of political nostalgia. People want to return a particular past where social relations were considered as "pure" and "basic", in the heterosexual and monoracial sense. This extends to forms of radical environmentalism that is not necessarily predicated on environmental justice, but on a longing for a past away from materialism and the diversity often associated with urbanity – it is a return to a lifestyle of isolation from variegation. 

When right wing entities, such as the National Policy Institute chaired by Richard Spencer and their like, are being designated hate groups, some abominable factions resorted to creating "off the radar" autonomous zones like the ones seen on a plot of land in Virginia, run by Wolves of Vinland. These communal buildings house members where “manliness and honor matter again.” Höfig showed us some of the pictures that one of their (former) members had uploaded on Instagram. Men's Rights activist and former "Wolves" member Jack Donovan and Wolves of Vinland co-founder Paul Waggener provide webinars and ebooks explaining Medieval symbols and how to use ancient gear to survive in their “pure” and “basic” lifestyle for “likes” and “shares,” which they then capitalize on for funding white nationalist causes. Despite the perfunctory social exclusion and legal designation of these factions as being hate groups, they still have outlets on social media and earn money from viewers. In other words, these groups have found alternatives to centerstage politics of racist demonstrations and white nationalist rallies. They manage to peripherally exist and virtually disseminate their message by means of techno-politics that embraces the infamous "influencer" culture to speak about their identity and lived experience. 

In short, time and time again, nostalgia has proven to be a successful political tool to persuade the demos of the feasible return to the past if they elected and followed particular political leadership — be it in the election of Biden for those who were nostalgic about Obama, of Trump for those who were nostalgic about the so-called greatness America had, or of racist political figures across Europe (Macron, Orbán, Le Pen, Erdogan) for those who were nostalgic about the "better" old days. It is then understandable why white nationalists employ Vikings Age and Medieval Norse symbols.

On Vikings and White Nationalism

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