Reading the article “TeleSUR and the Anonymous” by Eduardo Rothe made me cringe for a number of reasons.
For one, his argument is so divorced from the realities of office life that I can’t help but wonder whether the author has ever worked for a prolonged period of time in a large office setting.
Secondarily, he ascribes a sacrosanct aura to TeleSUR as a revolutionary organization and Venezuelan labor law that is a wretched form of fetishism and dogmatism.
Third he denies the necessity of a formal inquiry into charges that have been repeatedly made despite the ease which such an investigation could be accomplished.
Fourth, he conjectures that those expressing discontent in regards office policy may be “manipulated by the enemy” – exactly the type of stigmatization that makes a creative, constitutive enterprise like TeleSUR become stagnant and filled with ideological automatons that can recite the part catechism without missing a word but may not have the right skills to do good work.
The Realities of Office Life
Only someone that has never witnessed or experienced increased adversarial behavior by management or shunning by one’s co-workers for fear of being associated with them following a comment made that contests the correctness of management’s decisions, or something along that line, could make such an argument.
Eduardo Rothe’s criticism is so absurd as to also ignore the realities of changing jobs and the power that management has as a result of their recommendations and references for that person.
Black-listing of workers deemed problematic has long been a way of enforcing beliefs and disciplining workers. The black-list is not always of a quality wherein it is some secret document shared or comment made by management, but in the case of a media organization like TeleSUR becomes something that becomes discoverable by those doing due diligence before a hire.
It’s because of just such publicly available documents that I was able to create these biographies of the people that work at TeleSUR. It’s this document, for instance, that allowed me to connect the director of TeleSUR English, Pablo Vivanco, to RPRPR RPRPR of Time Magazine – and thus explain how such factually baseless news that reads more like an advertisement to be disseminated.
This sort of behavior is done in places where any murmur of discontent leads to major stigmatization by management. Anyone who receives such a mark of Cain suddenly has their entire manner of relating to others at work changed.
It means that people avoid talking to you in the office kitchen lest management sees or gets a report. It means you don’t get invited out to lunch or drinks with the same people lest management gets a report. One starts to wonder if their criticism about a new policy or deadline is going to make its way through the office grapevine, where a write up of insubordination or some other trivial cause now means that you are on the path out the door.
In a meeting, your voice may not have the same aura of authority; your insights – no matter how beneficial – may be categorically dismissed. You become the embodiment of why one should not speak up as people may make morale-killing wisecracks about your actions
In a media outlet that describes itself as wanting to be a constitutive force it sure is ridiculous that they’re not able to do more in order to create that. What normalizing such workplace behavior does is to limit the availability to attract highly skilled talent as those that have professionally developed themselves to fit such a role can easily find opportunities elsewhere, in a place where one need not fit a particular ideological mold.
The Aura of Unassailable Authority
It is the height of absurdity to state that because a law exists and means for investigating claims that laws were broken exists that such violations need not be publicized. A correlative to the above point, once someone submits information to the Ministry of Labor they are now on record as being someone that is a “problem”.
Furthermore, it’s the nature of government institutions to cover up the misdoings of other institutions. This is not some peculiarity of post-Chavez politics in Venezuela but is something that happens in the United States frequently. Police refer to it as the blue line, and its often times not until such a public furor happens – like in Ferguson – that suppressed realities become clear.
It’s for this reason that Rothe’s claim that the people who wrote the article to which he is responding are arguing for abstract principles completely misinterprets them. They are expressing a means of exercising a greater degree of control over their work through an onsite organization as they feel that the means by which they have to appeal are insufficient.
The Ease of Investigation via Digitization
Addressing the third issue, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, given the digitization of work and work schedules making an inquiry into the charges made by the anonymous employees does not take a significant amount of time. It not only becomes a means of determining whether or not these charges are true, but it allows for the objective identification of those that act contrary to a positive work environment. With this process in place, those identified as potential trouble sources can either receive more training on how to better do their job, be reassigned to some other position, or be told to leave if the problems found are significant.
Creating an Authoritarian Workplace
It’s exactly what Eduardo Rothe describes as desirable that extensive studies have shown to be exactly what makes workers dissatisfied, disengaged and unappealing to those that view authority in meritocratic terms. It’s why, in the United States, the private sector often finds it easier to attract highly skilled workers in various industries.
Innovation occurs when traditional methods for doing something and established boundaries are pushed. An enterprise such as TeleSUR, whose mission is the propagandizing towards the formation of a new type of political subjectivity by very definition requires such persons to resist the bureaucratic rationalizations that may look good on reports but on the ground have little to no import.
Google Analytics Social Media Engagement YouTube Live Streaming Data YouTube Data You’re the Reporter Engagement Cuidadano TeleSUR TeleSUR’s Apps TeleSUR Training Programs Company Policies Advertisement/Monetization Information Email Signups Services Offered Human Resources Data Employee Issues and Ideas
Google Analytics
Access to this is imperative for me to strategize a growth strategy and a content repurposing strategy.
Social Media Engagement
Tools like TalkWalker, for example, are just some of the many tools which I use that provide all sorts of insight. I’d like information not just on TeleSUR English’s Facebook profile but also all of their social media profiles.
If these number of viewers in these three pictures are indicative of the normal viewership of these programs?
What are the costs involved in live streaming?
YouTube Data
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The Andrew Self show should never have been produced past a season.
I’d like to review the process for choosing show development for a North American audience; learn costs involved for repurposing existent material to new standards as there is so much great material existent but in a format inappropriate to modern consumption means, and initiate a whole new manner for receiving pitches and determining what gets produced.
Website Engagement
Copy in Spanglish
Copy in Spanglish
Copy in Spanish and Spanglish
Copy in Spanish and Spanglish
First login attempt doesn’t work.
Second login attempt takes me to a 404 page.
So when I tried to log in to make a comment on another page, it doesn’t work.
When I login in via Facebook it takes me here:
Compare this to the ease with which I can comment on other websites.
You’re the Reporter Engagement
After trying to make a comment on the website, I decided to see about signing up to be a reporter and could not log in via the login and password of the account I’d created. Facebook worked, but Google did not
Twitter log in could have worked
However after seeing what TeleSUR wanted me to authorize the app to be able to do the following.
Update my profile.
Follow new people.
Post Tweets for me.
Reading this, I changed my mind. Lest someone think that such a request is normal, on the right is the Twitter permissions ask from RT in order to comment.
After I logged in to Facebook, however, it took me to the TeleSUR, rather than an English page.
I speak Spanish so I have not issue with this, the forms are pretty standard, so no problem there either, but it’s likely this is a majoy reason there are so few English speakers that are contributing to You’re The Reporter.
Style guides, documents on how to be a reporter, an outreach plan, etc. would also help sign up numbers.
Is it really worth continuing to update these? What features could be added or taken away to salvage the initial investment? Who is tasked with servicing the apps now, as there are major problems with them.
Even though TeleSUR can operate outside of the normal constraints of a capitalist enterprise doesn’t mean that there should be no pre-planning done before making such investments or discipline against those that waste company resources.
TeleSUR Training Programs
TeleSUR English: Lying, Misleading, Useless and Ugly Infographics, the quality of multi-media projects is low. Instructionals and training needs to be made/provided to staff and should also be featured as a subsection of the website. This empowers people to be more technically literate and encourage a greater quality of contributions and draws more traffic. Think: “TeleSUR doesn’t just provide news, it provides media literacy.”
Company Policies
Based on the total lack of engagement from TeleSUR accounts on social media and on their website – even when people make incredibly inflammatory comments that ought to be deleted – I imagine that there is a policy of categorical non-engagement.
The same applies for production processes, editorial processes, publishing processes, promotional processes, strategy processes and reporting processes
Advertisement/Monetization Information
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There’s nothing essentially wrong with having advertisements on a website.
However TeleSUR’s approach to ads is substantively different, they have ads nobody else has. Pop up ads are the most hated form of ads. And they have not one, but two pop-ups along with a pop up to collect emails. Not to mention the large ads which cause people to scroll through them in order to get to the comments section.
The experience of the reader is important, but it goes beyond this. Pop up blockers are increasingly becoming a built-in component of internet browsers. This means that this method of gaining revenue is often getting circumvented.
Furthermore, Google’s API devalues website with popups. They created a test the called the Ad Experience Report for webmasters. Those with backend access to the website are able to run the test and then get a grade based on the industry standards.
Because of all of the above, I’d like to know the following:
Revenue based on ads.
Who was the person who gave final approval on such ads.
The copy and form need to be changed. Over the last two days, 1/3 of the featured articles in the emails were repeated.
I’d also like to know:
Conversion rates
Open rate
Click-through rate
Hard Bounce Rate
Unsubscribe rate
Delivery rate
Time on site
What other ways you utilize your list besides driving traffic.
Services Offered
An Empty Catalog of Services Offered – another view here
On the TeleSUR English page listed as Services Catalog, there is no catalog.
I imagine that this is just an oversight on behalf of the website team, but if it’s not and TeleSUR is banning English speakers from using their facilities for some reason I’d like to know why.
Human Resources Data
A high turn over rate is something in the TeleSUR English offices was claimed in the 2012 Apporea article Let The North Again Be Out South. This was also something that was mentioned in the 2014 leaked email article in Caracas Chronicles. Every current and former TeleSUR employee that I’ve spoken to have described the same experience.
With the start date and quit/fire dates of employees, this is an issue that can be easily turned into a Gantt chart to quickly visualized By color coding employees by department, it would even be possible to determine which jobs/managers are most likely to lead to turnover.
Employee Issues and Ideas
While all of the above is technical, they are all made by people. I categorically refuse to provide names, identifying information or documentation related to what was provided to me – suffice it to say I received a lot and a lot of people said that morale is low.
Giving them a recourse to speak with someone that will listen to their grievances will help morale and speed up the discovery time of processes that could be adjusted to be more
It wasn’t until I started to do background research for this Ciudadano TeleSUR that I realized that I’m a little late to the party when it comes to making this a talking point. Caracas Chronicles wrote an article about Ciudadano TeleSUR shortly before the 10th anniversary of TeleSUR’s founding, April 17th, 2016.
His article goes into the some of the background of Argentinean President Mauricio Macri ceasing to financially support of TeleSUR and TeleSUR English and how it’s effecting morale there. This article deals with something else entirely and to be frank I think the author, Gustavo Hernandez, missed the mark on what was important about the video and the project. That’s understandable, however, as my concern is with the interconnection between aesthetics, politics and technics.
The Advertisement for Why People Should Donate to TeleSUR
You can watch the video of Patricia Villegas making an appeal for money above, or quickly read the subtitles, in the original Spanish or in the English, below.
Spanish Subtitles
Telesur nació como una alternative informativa independiente dispuesta a comunicar lo que otros no quieren o multimedia y responsable con corresponsales en todo el mundo.
Hoy la misión de telesur está en riesgo hay gobernantes que no quieren escuchar la voz de nuestros pueblos.
Por razones políticas económicas prefieren callamos igual que los medios hegemónicos que responden a los intereses de las grandes corporaciones frente a las adversidades de su responde con la verdad con más participación y más democracia.
Por eso te invitamos a convertirse en un ciudadano de origen con su aporte continuaremos ofreciendo de las herramientas para que puedan discerner reclamar y construir todo lo recaudado será recortado transparentemente y conocerás lo que hemos logrado. Con su petición porque estar informado es tu derecho no un negocio de Telesur estamos comprometidos contigo y con la verdad y gracias a su colaboración seguiremos siendo la señal informativa de América.
English Translation
Telesur was born as an independent information alternative willing to communicate what others do not want or multimedia and responsible with correspondents around the world today
The mission of TeleSUR is at risk. There are rulers who do not want to hear the voice of our people.
Economic political reasons. They prefer to remain silent as the hegemonic media that respond to the interests of large corporations in the face of the adversities of their response with the truth with more participation and more democracy.
That is why we invite you to become a citizen supporter. With your contribution we will continue offering the tools so that they can discern claim and build all the proceeds will be cut transparently and you will know what we have achieved with your request because being informed is your right not a telesur business
We are committed to you and to the truth. Thanks to your collaboration we will continue being the informative signal of America
Ciudadano TeleSUR: What Proof?! is in the Pudding
I’ve When I heard Patricia Villegas of TeleSUR say that someone could simply give money and
My Email Exchange with Helga Malave
English Translation
Good morning Ariel,
Unfortunately this campaign did not have the expected response so it is no longer in circulation. We appreciate your interest but we are not receiving affiliations to Telesur Citizens.
Best regards,
Helga
I think it’s interesting to note that Helga’s response has does not answer the question that I asked: “what have previous donations paid for” nor does it even address it. Instead she tells me that the program is no longer on-going – which is unusual considering that the website is still up.
English Translation
Helga,
I’m sorry to hear that the campaign did not have the expected response. The mission of TeleSUR is good and something that I support.
Even though this program ended, I’m still curious about the transparency Patricia refers to in the video.
Could you provide me with the information you mention that is available upon request about the achievements of TeleSUR?
Thank you,
Ariel Sheen
After not receiving a response to this, I sent another query on March 7th.
After not receiving a response to my March 7th query, I sent one last one on March 9th, this time including questions related to the “benefits” that one was supposed to receive if they donated.
In English, the benefits are:
• Mailed a TeleSUR newsletter.
• Card that accredits you as a Citizen teleSUR.
• Invitation to special events when they take place in your city.
• Those who gett five friends to donate, will receive a flannel, T-shirt as special recognition.
• News about programming in advance.
If Information Is A Right, Why Can’t I Get It?
As a result of this exchange, I have so many questions, like
Looking at the the most recent tweets it hasn’t been something that has been promoted in over a year and a half. So why was there still a subheader on the TeleSUR ENglish website for it that was still functional?!
This and what I talk about below really gets me thinking…
Was Ciudadano TeleSUR a Scam?!
Hard to say since they won’t provide:
The information on when the fundraising drive ended.
The information on how much they raised.
The information on how many donations they received.
The information on what the money was used for.
Contrast the transparency show here with this other funding drive for reporters. Here’s a link to the IndieGoGo page, and for when that’s taken down here’s a web archive file.
Below you can clearly see indications of all of the above.
Why is it that TeleSUR and TeleSUR English won’t be transparent about this information?
Ciudadano teleSUR? More like Ten Cuidado Con Telesur.
Whistleblowing is vital to holding powerful institutions accountable; whether you are in the government or the private sector, if you become aware of behavior that you believe is unethical, illegal, or damaging to the public interest, it’s important to consider sharing your information securely so as to minimize your risk of exposure.
Below are guidelines for whistleblowers seeking to communicate with me. What method you should use depends on your personal circumstances, the type of information you are sharing and the level of risk it entails.
SIGNAL
Another good option for sharing information is to contact us on Signal, a secure voice and messaging app. You can download Signal for Android or iPhone.
Using Signal to reach us is pretty easy. Here’s how:
Open the Signal app and tap the pen icon (in the top-right on an iPhone, in the bottom-right on Android) to start a new message. Type my phone number in the search box, 561-779-3985. From there, you can send us an encrypted Signal message.
Follow this guide to help lock down your phone and make sure what happens in your Signal app is more private.
If you use your phone to send me a message or call me on Signal, I will learn your phone number. It is always better for our reporting process to know a source’s identity, but we can agree to keep it confidential. The Signal service will also know that you contacted us, but they promise to never log this metadata.
EMAIL
If you have no reason to be concerned about anyone knowing that you are a source, you can reach our journalists by email, either by contacting a reporter individually or submitting tips at a.sheen@arielsheen.com.
If you want to, you can send your email using PGP encryption but keep in mind that there will still be metadata created by your communication with us, because your email server will record the exchange.
What Not To Do If You Want to Remain Anonymous
Don’t contact me from work.
Most corporate and government networks log traffic. Even if you’re using Tor, being the only Tor user at work could make you stand out.
Don’t email me, call me, or contact me on social media.
From the standpoint of someone investigating a leak, who you communicate with, and when, is all it takes to make you a prime suspect.
Don’t tell anyone that you’re a source.
Other Things To Think About
Before deciding to share your story with me, you might want to consider consulting an attorney to better understand your options and risks. If you do decide to contact an attorney, try to discuss everything face to face and be careful not to write any details in emails.
If you are thinking about providing me with particularly sensitive documents, consider these additional tips:
If you have had access to secret information that has been published, your activities on the external internet are likely to come under scrutiny, including what websites you have visited or shared to social media.
Make sure you consider that investigators may also examine logs of your activity on internal networks at your workplace.Be aware of this before sending information to me, and adjust your habits as needed well before you decide to become a source. Tools like Tor can help protect the anonymity of your surfing.
Keep your whistleblowing activity as separate as possible from the rest of what you do. Do not tell anyone and compartmentalize as much as possible. Don’t use accounts that are already connected to you. Instead, make new accounts for this purpose, and don’t log in to them from networks you normally connect to.
Make sure to clean up after yourself as best as you can. Avoid leaving traces related to whistleblowing lying around your personal or work computer (in your Documents folder, in your web browser history, etc.). If you realize you did a Google search related to whistleblowing while logged into your Google account, delete your search history. Consider keeping all related files on an encrypted USB stick rather than on your computer, and only plug it in when you need to work with them.
Consider using a completely separate computer or operating system for all of your whistleblowing activity so that a forensics search of your normal computer won’t reveal anything. Even if you’re using the Tor browser, for instance, if someone has hacked into your computer, they’ll be able to spy on everything you do. Tails is a separate operating system that you can install on a USB stick and boot your computer to. Tails is engineered to leave no traces behind. It’s not intuitive to use, but if you’re risking a lot, it’s probably worth the effort. You can find instructions for downloading and installing Tails here.
It is important to understand that no communication method is guaranteed to be completely secure. Becoming a whistleblower carries risks, but they can be minimized if you’re careful, and sometimes it’s the right thing to do.
Dozens of “Friends of TeleSUR” Groups Without Activity
Non-Responding Group Admins
I contacted all of these people and not a single one responded.
That’s all I really have to say about that.
Real Photos, Fake Profiles
Dan Luttrel is an interesting character.
Not only does Dan repost an incredibly large amount of links from TeleSUR, RT, and other left-of-center news outlets – but none of his friends or family comments on it nor does he respond to Facebook messages.
No Photos, Fake Profiles
Besides the photos of people with the above, there’s also a number of profiles that like and share TeleSUR content without any profiles and only with a few “friend” connections.
Some of these sock puppet profiles even list Instagram accounts which, perhaps unsurprisingly, don’t have any posts.
TeleSUR’s Many Apps Are Rarely Downloaded and Poorly Rated
As a concept it’s understandable why mobiles apps would be appealing to a newly minted media company. It provides status, stature, clout, cachet.
It seems intuitively sensible too, considering that Latin America and North America both have high smartphone adoption rates.
But such a perspective, however, is fundamentally flawed.
For one it shows ignorance of people’s reading habits for reading the news. It shows that no one took the time to do the proper research one should to determine whether or not these apps are cost-effective means of spreading TeleSUR and TeleSUR English content.
Things Look Good First At First, But Not On Closer Examination
It’s an unfortunate truth that many people will often rate a product or service positively or poorly in relation to their particular worldview. My research into Amazon book reviews about Venezeula shows the Right doing it, and here, in these Android comments we see the “Left” doing it.
TeleSUR Android Download Data and Fake Reviews
I didn’t make any comparisons between TeleSUR’s apps and RT’s, BBC’s, or Al Jazeera as really, it just makes TeleSUR look bad. TeleSUR and TeleSUR English’s download from Android are in the thousands while there’s are all in the hundreds of thousands and millions.
Plus, I have doubts that the numbers of downloads for them are likely inflated. I certainly could be wrong, but when looking at people commenting towards their ratings of TeleSUR’s apps I noticed something strange.
I’ve copied below screenshots of the rather unusual names and online traces of two of the many seemingly fake reviews.
While it may seem that this could be that these people, and several other names that write out reviews, are really just -so- happen to make comment in praise of TeleSUR and then also have random comments on random websites and broken business websites. Or maybe they’re digital ghosts designed to falsely bolster the appearance that TeleSUR’s app are actually worth downloading. I don’t know – none of the people that I found to have Facebook profiles have responded to me yet. That said, it is interesting to note in the above the Russian connection.
TeleSUR App Development Costs
Many considerations go into the cost of an app. A barebones app ranges from $75,000 to $125,000. The median cost is $270,000 Though some can go much higher.
Having downloaded, tested and been completely underwhelmed by TeleSUR’s apps, I would imagine that they cost around $100,000.
I say underwhelmed as these are totally unnecessary were they to spend money on optimizing their mobile website rather than making these. As can be seen by the number of downloads and users, there is a high cost to user ratio. And the initial costs don’t even count all of the money wasted on making apps.
TeleSUR English: Continual Costs Lest Initial Investment be Lost
Apps are kind of like pets, once you have them you need to take care of them until end of life.
These costs are not fixed and vary due to the complexity of the app’s features, if any, as well as the changes made with each iOS or Android update, as well as if the developers are the same as the one which first created it or if new coders are used.
The above cost of maintenance for apps data comes from this article by Clutch, which surveyed 102 app development companies to determine the cost of building and maintaining a mobile app.
TeleSUR English’s Security Settings
The Android permission system is qualitatively different from the iOS one. The latter is reviewed by Apple teams and they approve or disprove apps from being transmitted via the app store according to appropriate criteria. For Android, no such gatekeeper exists and the users decide themselves.
99.9% of the time this is so the application can do things like save data to the sdcard. For example this could be images from wallpaper app, or if the app is used to backup your sms messages for you, or even a podcast app needs to save the mp3 file to the sdcard.
If the app is just to provide news, why does it need to have access to every file on the system? Why should I give TeleSUR access to private pictures, personal messages, contact information and other data on my device just to get headlines that I could just as easily obtain from their website?
It’s not my claim that they are currently or once were using the app as a means of gathering extensive information about those that used it – but it’s worth bringing up why they felt they make such a request of those wishing to use it.
If you don’t trust an application to install it on your PC, you wouldn’t install it. You should use the same thoughts with your Phone, but keep in mind that you may have even more personal information on the Phone then you would on your PC.
TeleSUR English’s Tragic Flipbook Following
When it comes to favoring news outlets loyalty to particular outlets, just like brands, is dead. Why go through a whole website if you really just want to know about a particular story in a particular place?
Flipbook recognized this early on and now has over 100 million monthly users. One of which is myself. Intersting to note is that those, 100,000,000 only 112 follow TeleSUR English.
For those that are into math, that means that’s .00000112% of Flipbook’s users.
The number of people that follow their magazine channels?
Well, I imagine that 35 is the same number of people that have on staff in Quito producing and distributing their digital media…
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My question now is such: Who were those people that were in the room making the decision to make the apps? And are they still working there? Cause if so, they shouldn’t be.
Shortly after starting at my last medium size marketing agency job I had the pleasure of hearing Alberto Cairo give a presentation on Infographics. He helped take what then was a passing interest in infographics into a full-blown passion.
My appetite not yet whetted, I then bought and studied the 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 volumes of The Best American Infographics and signed up to mailers like Information is Beautiful and started reading.
Why the fascination? Simply put, infographics and other means for visualizing data are incredibly useful means for organizing and presenting information that otherwise takes many paragraphs or pages.
Well. Better put, they can be.
After all, all Bugatti Chiron’s are cars, but not all cars are Bugatti Chirons.
When it comes to TeleSUR English’s Infographics not only do they lack any Bugattis in the line up of work they’ve produced, but most of their infographics are better classified as jalopies, scrap metal, or cardboard boxes.
Lest it appear that I’m overly harsh, I’ll review a few examples of the many infographics that have major issues in truthfulness and aesthetics.
TeleSUR English Infographic with Incorrect Information
This infographic, a term I clearly use loosely here because it’s really just a visual news release poorly conceived and executed, amuses me for a number of reasons.
I took a screenshot of this “infographic” to point out how several people that viewed it believed it to be the incorrect date listed on there and thus felt that it reduced their credibility as a news organization.
In TeleSUR English’s defense, this is an understandable mistake.
I’ve worked with enough graphic designers from Latin America to know that this is a typical error when producing based on designs for an American audience.
Similar errors include applying metric measurements, using comma’s instead of periods to indicate decimals and writing “Jaja” instead of “Haha”.
What’s makes this doubly funny is that even then, the date is still wrong.
In addition to these issues, you’ll notice after every period in the list that there is a hyphen.
1. –
2.-
3. –
Why? A full stop has been indicated, so there’s no need for a dash. It’s distracting and unnecessary.
In the places where the copy is gramatically correct, which is few and far between, the word choice doesn’t make sense. The writer of the copy clearly had English as a second language, which is fine, but the editor that approved publication should have checked it first.
TeleSUR English Infographic with Incorrect Information Part II
4 +10 +8 +12+ 26 +12+50= 122, not 185.
TeleSUR English’s Infographic is incorrect, though their source – Global Witness – is not only clear that this number is worldwide, but they also present the data in a far superior manner.
Clicking on the link above or exploring the map below demonstrated far superior means for displaying that data that does not lose credibility because they can’t do simple math.
TeleSUR English Infographic with Incorrect Information Part III
Besides the fact that the infographic is ugly – all of those people they show on there provide don’t assist in interpreting or understanding what is being depicted, but hampers quick interpretation. Then there’s the fact that they miscategorize the Massacre at Wounded Kneww as a “mass shooting” instead of an act of genocide. Futhermore, the one percent figure that’s on there, “31% of mass shootings happen in the US” isn’t contextualized. What they should be including is this in relation to the world’s population – which the United States makes up ~5% of.
Oh, and then there’s the fact that their research didn’t include a number of other mass shooting that other news outlets research teams discovered.
TeleSUR English Infographic That Is Ugly and Stupid
I found this particular infographic to be interesting, though not in a good way.
The first thing that stuck out to me on this – besides the garish blue and red color scheme – was the many percentages.
The five-second rule applies both to food that has fallen on the floor as well as to infographics. Perhaps a small percentage of people can determine what 3.7% is of 58 million, but all would agree that it’d be much easier if this particular number was just placed on the infographic.
Seeing the source, however, was the second thing. See that I knew immediately that not only was this infographic ugly, but that it was stupid. How so? Cause Pew Research understands data and how to visualize it.
TeleSUR English could have shown in greater detail where precisely Latino’s where – but did not.
In the TeleSUR English iteration, the Latinos just drop into the middle of the United States. Why visualize it that way when you can get even more gradient like the above? Whoever researched for this infographic must have seen it to get the data, but apparently didn’t think to mention to anyone at TeleSUR English that there was a better way of showing it there.
More than that, the infographic could have contained where Latinx people were and where they were going.
Migration Policy’s South American Immigrants in the United States gives a hint as to how much more useful a well-made infographic can be. Showing migration (new people) instead of (net people) allows them to tell a story about the changing conditions that latinos may be facing.
And let’s face it, these are latino people we are talking about, not latinx. Which is the first thing the people read when looking at the article and is something that a vast majority of people don’t use and is likely to make people want to dismiss it – a feeling compounded by the many percentages discussed earlier.
TeleSUR English Infographic That Is Useless
There’s a joke somewhere connecting being high to whoever signed off on this, but I don’t want to perpetuate false stereotypes of drug users.
While I’m focusing on the essential worthlessness of the infographic, I also want to point out that none of the flags on the infographic are correct.
Washington State Flag
Colorado State Flag
Oregon State Flag
Now when I say that this infographic is useless I mean this in a number of ways.
Additionally worth noting is that ALL of the infographics are not paired with any textual content – be it a news story, opinion article or analysis that TeleSUR English has produced.
What, you may ask could have been shown instead? Excellent question.
If this was connected to some story, for instance comparing the cost of percent THC to price?
THC facts from UruguayTHC facts from Colorado
But not, that’s not really all that interested either. Here’s some examples of “marijuana infographics”:
Now I have my issues with this infographic too – it needs a source listed; the deaths per substance at the bottom should be a bar chart; the prohibition cost listed covers all of drugs war spending (though for what year I don’t know) rather than just marijuana so that’s not appropriate either.
But even then this is at least giving some useful information besides an appropriate price to pay a drug dealer.
This chart I really love, which really isn’t a surprise because Statista always produces great work.
***
Despite my criticism of the past four years of the infographics that TeleSUR English’s has produced and the people that signed off on it, there may be a change coming soon.
Earlier today, February 22nd, Patricia Villegas tweeted the following.
While I’m glad that Patricia Villegas has begun multimedia journalism workshops for TeleSUR and TeleSUR Englis at their headquarters in Caracas.
Furthermore, I also wonder what’s happening with the content that they produce – is it going to be disseminated solely for the people present there, or are they going to make this useful information available for free somewhere on there website so that anyone from the Global South can download it and learn it?
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see as to their level of adherence to their stated commitment to those in the Global South. After all, not everyone can afford to spend the money on the books that I have in my quest to master the craft of creating quality inforgraphics.
However as I’ll now demonstrate, these political and academic roles did not provide him the knowledge of the modern digital media ecology that’s necessary for one to be a successful Director of such an operation as TeleSUR English and he has not since grasped how to do this in his 4 years at TeleSUR English.
Starving The Target Audience
Pablo Vivanco has signed off on the production of thousands of articles that the vast majority of Americans typically avoid reading. Not because of the subject matter or perspective, but because of their reading level.
While TeleSUR English’s departing from industry standard by attempting to provide more context to the news event is laudable, their decision to ignore industry standards by publishing way above most American’s reading level is not. Simply put, it alienates potential readers.
These errors not only drive people away, but negatively effects search ranking, thus making it more difficult for those searching for context to come across the information on their website.
Whereas other major digital media operations like New York Times and the Washington Post have transitioned to more interactive storytelling approaches that uses R, Tableau, Excel and similar programs TeleSUR English stagnates by using the same broken javascript frames to merely link traditional photo with traditional text. Information is beautiful, but the way TeleSUR English presents it’s stories is often not.
The Importance of Knowing and Applying the New Media Paradigm
The biggest problems TeleSUR English struggles with is, it seems, a lack of knowledge of or adherence to new media best practices.
In the new media environment the essential driver for growth is building relationships.
In a highly congested digital media landscape, forming a lasting relationship means you can reach more people and influence more people for less money. It takes the form of onsite engagement, large email subscriber numbers, people positively referencing your work on other websites.
A cursory review of TeleSUR English’s Twitter and Facebook accounts as well as their on-site comments sections shows the barest of engagement, even in the places where one might expect it.
Onsite Example of a Failed Controversy Meant to Drive Engagement
Comparing the 6 comments here to the 2,685 found on this Breitbart article, on a roughly similar topic at around the same time, it’s clear that it didn’t achieve the desired effect of generating comments at all. What it shows is that TeleSUR English has a small audience that doesn’t care to engage even when content that should offend the target audience is posted.
Twitter Example of Failed Engagement
None of these stats should convince you that TeleSUR English is investing in what matters.
As it relates to information on Twitter’s engagement for this article, I decided against using an API to scrape, review, process and interpret the information about this due to the cost as it’s immediately evident that there’s a lack-of-meaningful engagement here as well.
Instead of what works, both accounts simply drown their readers in posts.
The motto of TeleSUR English seems to be quantity over quality.
Pablo Vivanco’s Fake Social Media Stats
At the 2016 Left Forum, Pablo Vivanco spoke about his experiences as the Director of TeleSUR English.
While the entirety of his presentation has not been made available (and if anyone happens to have it I would hope that the email it to me), I was able to discover an interesting quote from his presentation:
“Social media platforms are controlled by corporate media,” he [Pablo] said, “But these are the ways people consume information and news. To not participate is to cede space we shouldn’t cede.”
“When we launched there was a fair amount of resources put into buying views and likes on social media platforms,” Vivanco said ruefully. “But social media functions on algorithms. You need organic engagement and reach- using networks and working with others, building engagement.”
In a few public words Pablo Vivanco gave evidence as to why TeleSUR English should be penalized by algorithms designed to halt “fake news”.
Whether or not Facebook, Google and other such algorithms are designed to find and factor in such comments is honestly beyond me, but I do know that an event occurred which provides insight into just how many followers Pablo Vivanco purchased and how many of TeleSUR English’s followers are actually real. It was shocking to me as it was MUCH lower than what I’d projected initially.
How a Fake News Story that Fooled Newsweek Provides Insight into TeleSUR English’s Readership Numbers
At a time where Facebook censorship is a hot-button issue, no other media outlets picked up the story. If this sounds surprising, it’s less so after the story becomes clearer.
For one, shortly after publication, a correction was made to correct the prior claim that Facebook censored them. The reality being that this was just speculation on the part of Pablo Vivanco.
Secondarily, a little bit of research shows that Carlos Ballesteros and Pablo Vivanco are long-standing political colleagues – evidenced by their co-existent signatures on a resolution defending the SNTE teacher union, in a La Jornada declaration from March 2013 on pages 12-13. Most outlets doing background, like myself were likely to have picked this up and seen the article as a favor to a friend.
There are other issues with this article as well, such as Carlos Ballesteros informing the reader that “TeleSUR boasts a viewership of nearly half a billion people in 110 countries,” which defies all projections that I’ve seen. However the real interesting thing, is the organic response after the profile was taken down, presumably, for political censorship.
TeleSUR English’s Actual Audience Numbers
After the false report that TeleSUR English was censored began circulation, a page called TeleSUR News Aggregate came into existence and posted notifications to follow it in a number of Leftist-oriented groups on Facebook and alternative news sites.
What’s notable about this is that the number of people who rallied in “defense” of TeleSUR English was a far cry from the ~410,000 currently “liking” it – only 3,538 people.
Also notable is how that now a single person in any of the 40+ “Friends of TeleSUR English” Facebook groups said a peep about it’s being temporarily unpublished.
Does this mean that there are 406,000 fake likes for TeleSUR English on Facebook?
It’s possible. The only was we would know for sure was if this company engaged in some radical transparency.
If we presume that operating costs dropped from $17.6 million in the first year to 10 to 15 million in the following four years, this would then mean that the average amount of money that the governments supporting TeleSUR English was spending per genuine follower – taken to be the number of people that followed TeleSUR News Aggregate – is $16,053.
True, this doesn’t include the numbers of followers from TeleSUR English’s other properties, however, it’s quite likely that those numbers are equally false and I think it fair to state that the primary outlet is likely to be the most authoritative source for actual numbers.
I would LOVE for TeleSUR English to release their live streaming numbers as over a week long period wherein I randomly checked their feed I never saw viewership reach over seven people at a time.
TeleSUR English is unique in today’s media environment.
Unlike other media news companies wholly or partially funded by foreign governments – such as BBC and Britain; RT and Russia, 24 and France – TeleSUR English is avowedly socialist in its political orientation. There are no red flags or five pointed stars in its masthead to indicate this but it is evident in other ways.
He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune
TeleSUR’s main financial supporter is Venezuela, ruled by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
Additionally the non-current event content shared on their social media pages includes quotes and photos from socialists such as Rosa Luxembourg, the Black Panther Party, Patrice Lumumba; people that were sympathetic to socialists like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr; and a variety of other socialist related content.
In their About Me section, TeleSUR English claims that they want to be “A space and a voice for the construction of a new communications order” centered around the subject of “Global South” an allusion to social, political and economic justice.
Why I Decided to Review TeleSUR English’s Digital Footprint
In December of 2017, a few months after I left a job as a Creative Director at a major marketing firm, I decided to make a case study on TeleSUR English that I would later publish on Medium.
To accomplish this I looked underneath the proverbial hood of this modern iteration of a radical newspaper to see what was doing well and what needed to be changed.
My intent in looking at various key performance indicators I’d previously used in the digital media strategy and marketing realm to compare to Russia’s attempt to influence America.
On first look, what I discovered was disconcerting, but as I continued to research, something more nefarious emerged.
Why What I Discovered on Reviewing TeleSUR English Required A Public Report
Why? I’m not sure but I imagine that it has to do with fact that I uncovered at TeleSUR English what looks to be corruption and gross incompetence, if not sabotage.
How do I know this?
Some of the bad stats were intentionally produced to be misleading as to the level of success of TeleSUR English’s operations.
Some of the bad stats were intentionally produced as the person directing operations was either incompetent or is trying to purposely sabotage TeleSUR English’s operations.
Future Historians Will Refer to The First 5 Years of TeleSUR English’s Wasted Money and Opportunities as it’s Lost Half-Decade
If someone should write about the history of TeleSUR English they will refer to it as The Lost Half Decade. Why? Because of how badly TeleSUR English has been directed since its inception in the digital realm. How bad is it? Below is an explanation as to why it happened as well as several examples of the criminal-level incompetency that I’ve discovered.
Worthless Metrics Promoted as Meaningful
In the description on his LinkedIn account, Pablo Vivanco writes the following:
“With a reduced staff and budget, improved metric outreach by over 2000% in under 12 months”
As impressive a number as 2000% is, anyone that’s done any sort of digital marketing, growth hacking or any kind of content marketing strategy will tell you – outreach by itself is an entirely meaningless metric.
Nobody cares about the numbers of emails sent that are never opened; the number of dofollow links placed on low Domain Authority user-generated webpages; or the links posted on websites that are never read, etc. Google, especially, doesn’t care about these.
While this number can be useful in comparison to something else over time – for instance outreach numbers in relationship to A/B testing email headers, only someone that doesn’t have a professional understanding of digital media ecology would self-publicize about such a metric, let alone authorize the spending of tens of thousands of dollars to achieve such a metric.
Key performance indicators that ought to be monitored to track and map improvement include the following:
Number of email subscriptions.
Genuine number of followers of social media accounts.
Genuine engagement level on social media accounts.
Domain authority.
Brand/website awareness.
Number of readers.
Reader engagement (i.e. Time Spent on Pages, Number of Pages Traversed, Comments/Shares).
Any person wishing to genuinely understand and track the health of TeleSUR English, or any website for that matter, should be looking at these key performance indicators.
Looking at TeleSUR English’s social media footprint, we can see the shape of such mismanagement.
False Followers on All Social Media
On TeleSUR English’s Twitter, Facebook and YouTube Accounts there is ample evidence that many of the people which are “Following” these accounts are not real.
Pablo Vivanco admitted this was true while on the phone with me.
Lacking internal access to their social media accounts and to their internal purchases (to check for “Pay for Followers” services) I cannot say for certain what proportion that this is actually is, but I can estimate and what I can say authoritatively is that they have zero value.
False Followers on Twitter
TwitterAudit suggests that about 80% of TeleSUR English’s followers are real, however based on engagement numbers demographics and the number of people following them that follow over 500 people, I’d say actual people following are about one-half to two thirds of what is actually shown for Twitter. A full report from Twitnomy could easily show me wrong.
False Followers on YouTube
For the number of YouTube views and subscriptions, I would say the percent of people that are fake to real is much higher.
Given the ratios of ratings of videos, to engagement via comments, to view numbers I’d say that it is likely half of the views and subscriptions aren’t real.
False Followers on Facebook
There’s fewer means for determining false engagement levels on Facebook outside the app itself, so I decided to try an experiment.
After reviewing a number of posts people, I noticed a number of recurring names.
Given many of these people’s profiles were almost entirely not in English, I was surprised. I understand that it’s normal in many places for English to be a 2nd, 3rd or even 4th language – but there was just zero indication other than a TeleSUR English link that it was within there repertoire. As such I decided to send friend requests and message ten people to see how many responded. Out of the ten, only one did.
Now does this mean only one in ten of their followers are real? Certainly not.
What it does mean that someone at TeleSUR English has been paying for follower services, which ought to be categorized as an improper allocation of tax resources.
Interesting to note: What happened shortly after I tried this experiment? Facebook took down the TeleSUR English Facebook page.
***Update 2/11/18***
Because of the above section, I’ve since been accused that I want to “destroy” TeleSUR English. This is simply not true, I simply do not believe that paying for fake followers is a defensible strategy.
Furthermore, I’ve since learned from an internal source that the unpublishing of the TeleSUR English Facebook page was an accident on their part. That they’ve not commented on this, to me, is totally irresponsible and a further example of their willingness to distort the truth for their own narrative gain.
Other Examples of Corruption
TeleSUR English has now been in existence for over four years and as a result of their choosing a director primarily for ideological rather than professional reasons, TeleSUR English pursued a number of content ideation, production and digital media strategies that are not considered best practices by YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
Examples of Best Practices Not Being Followed
One example of TeleSUR English not following best practices is with its abundance of high production videos that are simply too long.
YouTube and Facebook videos which are most often shared are five minutes and under. While longer format content certainly fulfills a need, TeleSUR English ignores all data-based advice by not repurposing what they’ve already produced into short and succinct segments that are more readily sharable and digestible.
That the above video has only 38 views is both a testament to its length and the bizarre name “Birds of the Apocalypse” that means a person looking for information on “Vulture Funds” will have great difficulty finding it.
Additionally there are the technical mistakes which sometimes require viewers to tell the TeleSUR English staff that the video they are live-streaming is sideways.
Such mistakes happen naturally, it’s only human. However it seems that TeleSUR English has such an abundance of them as the person directing the enterprise simply doesn’t know how to optimize their digital media presence.
Wrong Backlinking Strategy
A well-executed back-linking strategy is an incredibly powerful means for establishing a higher Domain Authority and drawing in readers. However from the above view from Ahrefs we can see that this was not the case.
The strategy which TeleSUR English followed was to take a route that allowed for the wrong kind of data to be presented in fair light rather quickly – “outreach”. Outreach in this instance means putting over a million links on low domain authority websites that has their content generated by users.
Not only does this not constitute an effective strategy, but changes on the content platform could remove all of that effort with a terms of service change or a coterie of committed, computer literature people could remove all of those links.
It’s understandable WHY someone would want to do this – currently some of the top referring pages to TeleSUR English are from Wikipedia, however this doesn’t justify this as a strategy but instead as a reason why to change strategy.
Any government funded institution that spends money on a back-linking strategy that involves people placing hundreds of thousands of links on Wikipedia, Pinterest and GooglePlus is guilty of gross incompetence and misuse of public funds.
Terrible User Experience Encourages Visitors to Bounce
The above screenshot capture is one of the numerous examples that illustrate the website was not properly designed.
Difficulty browsing frequently causes viewers to leave the page and I imagine that their bounce rate is exceptionally high.
After all, what sort of credibility can you grant to an enterprise that doesn’t know how to properly put the pieces together that allows for the dissemination of content?
Wrong Content Management Strategy
Many articles simply don’t have a title.
Many of the pages on TeleSUR English lack titles or anchor text. This is a basic and important component of websites. That it’s not there means that there is no Quality Assurance or Editorial staff that knows to include these before publication. That so much of their web content has been posted without this indicated a lack of competency on the work the Director oversees.
No One Is The Reporter
You’re the Reporter Section January 8th, 2018You’re the Reporter Section January 19th, 2018
The brief report I sent to Pablo Vivanco mentioned how in the You’re the Reporter subheading of TeleSUR English there were only five articles and that the last one published was over a year old.
This must have struck a nerve, as a few days later the content therein was deleted while the header remained.
What a telling symbol of the Director of TeleSUR English’s technical incompetence: he can’t even properly delegate the deletion of the entire section – only the content within the section!
Beyond just a symbol of incompetence, what else does this say about Pablo Vivanco’s directorship of TeleSUR English that after multiple years he still hasn’t been able to come up with a means for attracting, retaining and developing talent that wants to write from the perspective TeleSUR English wishes to promote.
Orlando Perez and Pablo Vivanco: TeleSUR English’s Corrupt Leaders
Orlando Perez
One of the Austrian School’s criticisms of the socialist mode of workplace administration and management is what they see as the tendency for innovation to be lost in production. Why? Those which meekly follow “the Party Line” would take up such a position rather than those that are most meritorious.
While I think that most of this school of thought to be ahistorical and metaphysical – this could explain the reason why TeleSUR, let alone TeleSUR English, doesn’t make it into the top 100 Latin American Newspapers Web Rankings.
Certain personality types, after all, prefer to keep power to themselves and act as a barrier for those that might be better equipped to direct. These are the kind of people that insulate themselves with a coterie of sycophants rather than surround themselves with the type of talent that is continuously striving for excellence.
Now admittedly I do not know much of the history of the people involved in TeleSUR English other than what I’ve been able to piece together from forums and blogs on the internet, but the story which emerged seems to confirm that the Hayek’s concerns have been actualized at TeleSUR English.
There are numerous (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) accounts of TeleSUR English’s difficult working environment and the person who oversees it’s Director, Oscar Perez, has had his fare share of controversy as well.
In 2017 Orlando Perez was fired from El Telegrafo as part of a political change up. Shortly thereafter he fled Quito, Ecuador for Miami, Florida following his assault on his former girlfriend. After he decided to stop evading arrest and returned to Quito, he held a press conference to explain everything and has since maintained his innocence, but in a highly politicized context wherein working for a leftist state-media publication is seen a mar on one’s resume, this doesn’t really matter.
In an environment where attracting and retaining talent is already hard, appearance matters and it’s no logical leap to say that talented women may be shy of wanting to work in an environment they are concerned about male aggression.
Besides this consideration, there Orlando Perez’s proclaimed political purity and orthodoxy that takes on a sinister tone when it comes to how he views his opponents. After translating several of his articles and interviews (1, 2), I noticed an overlap in our political views. However where he uses abelist language to refer to the “the autistic left” I refer to this group as politically aloof hedonism as I see no reason to insult and alienate potential allies as well as those with mental impairments.
En toto, considering that TeleSUR English states that they want to be “A space and a voice for the construction of a new communications order” centered around the subject of “Global South” an allusion to social, political and economic justice – it makes me wonder why they would have someone directing the decision-making process considering that clearly alienates so many potential allies and talent.
Pablo Vivanco
Not being a reporter with numerous articles by and about him, learning about Pablo Vivanco has been more difficult. From what I can tell his experience in digital media starts with him at TeleSUR English and besides the above, which shows that he has directed operations as if it were still the early 1990s and without a thought to the important nuances which make up effective digital strategy, there is little else worth noting.
I admit this is total conjecture, but it certainly seems to me likely that Orlando Perez would want to cover up the extent of Pablo Vivanco’s ability to formulate and enact a digital media strategy based upon the current best practices shared by the social media outlets that TeleSUR English uses.
In the wake of his domestic assault case, this would likely become another reason those in power would want to distance themselves from him and thus he needs it swept under the rug.
***Update 2/11/18***
I’ve received confirmation from a source inside TeleSUR English that confirms my above speculations about Orlando’s insulting, overbearing demeanor. I’ll quote this in an second article in the event I get more feedback.
Why Speaking Up and Out is More Important Than “Keeping it Professional” in This Instance
The reason that I’ve decided to write and publish this assessment is simple: It’s what an honest citizen with professional abilities and integrity would do in the situation – call out incompetence and corruption to help ensure the optimum function of a government institution.
TeleSUR encourages greater transparency in all governmental affairs, no surprise as it was in part founded to counter the lies of corporate media that had a major role in the 2002 coup attempt against Hugo Chavez Frias.
Ecuador has given asylum to Julian Assange and the governments of all TeleSUR contributors initially a defended Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. While U.S. politicians called these people traitors, seditionists and said that they should be killed without trial – the voices representing The South defended their actions as a service to the world. People have a right, they said, to know the extent of surveillance and espionage that everyday people and various businesses were subject to.
TeleSUR English, however, does not themselves abide by such values as transparency that the governments paying its bill claims to promote. Instead, it replicates an elite-est strand of authoritarian socialism that lies to it’s readers and tells itself it’s doing “good work”.
For the academic, 2016 “can be read as the year of the end of the long 20th century in historical terms”. He adds that Brexit, the victory of Donald Trump in the United States and the death of Fidel Castro symbolically mark a turning point in the correlation of forces worldwide, both political and economic. Álvaro García Linera points out that it is the end of globalization.
In reference to the book by Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation. I locate what happened in Ecuador in this decade in the framework of the political dispute, of the neoliberal background that marked two decades lost for the country and Latin America. There is a historical absurdity of wanting to point out that 10 years is enough to make a structural transformation, as some politicians like María Paula Romo and Guillermo Lasso have mentioned. That is to have no idea of history, neither Ecuadorian nor global. That is impossible, even more so when institutions created to generate an oligarchic society had to be dismantled and, after destroying it, to rebuild another that seeks the common good of the great majorities. If someone is being dragged by the current in the direction of a waterfall, the first thing to do is to steer the boat to take another direction. These ten years have allowed us to re-direct the ship, sailing against the current of world power relations and generate enough social energy to go towards peaceful waters and be able to anchor in a good port. Part of the great transition involves having redirected the ship, while improving the welfare of its passengers.
Does this mean that there is not a decade won?
Of course there is a decade won. And we have another decade ahead of us to win, but it is first a decade to contest. However, we must make a historical reading of the decade gained. Beyond the social results, which are clearly positive. Ppoverty has been reduced, consumption levels have improved, income levels, universal access to education and health, among others. There is a decade gained in political terms justly because the possibility of continuing to dispute a transformation of social structures to build a new social order: the construction of a sustainable human democracy is alive; that is, the society of good living.
What are the historical conditions identified in this transition that make the great transformation viable?
That there has been a dismissal / constituent moment, where the citizenry manifests the need to sign a new social covenant pact that generates a new social order; that the new social pact allows a structural transformation and that the political decisions that accompany the new pact have been structuring actions that allow us to configure the conditions of possibility of being able to dispute the great transformation.
The dismissal / constituent moment is clear, but does the new social pact make a new social order possible?
I have absolutely no doubt it does. The horizon of meaning is embodied in the new constitutional text. There are multiple paths for transformation. For example, we must pass:
1) from anthropocentrism to biocentrism;
2) from colonialism and patriarchalism to the pluridiverse society (plurinational and intercultural);
3) from exclusively representative democracy (which is consubstantial to capitalism) to sustainable human democracy, based on social participation and deliberation;
4) from market capitalism (social de-commodification) to the social and solidarity economy and, 5) from the mercantilist corporate state to the popular sovereign state guaranteeing rights.
Europe raised the construction of the Welfare State and that has been the last proposal for the construction of a new social order (after the failure of the offers of society made by the Soviet bloc). Now it seems that the right begins to dismantle it. In this framework, the road was based, among other aspects, on recognizing the equality of citizens with respect to social rights based on representative democracy. Undoubtedly, the constitutional proposals of South America are moving in that direction and the progressive governments have made rapid progress in reducing poverty, inequality and democratization of rights. But in the world that we live that is insufficient. The “new modernity”, if the term fits, goes through the construction of plurinational societies. This is what the Constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia, which without a doubt are in the vanguard in these terms. While this was raised in the South, in Europe last week in two days, 340 migrants died trying to reach their land. In fact, in 2016 the record number of 4,300 deaths in the Mediterranean was reached with three times fewer arrivals of migrants by sea than in 2015.
Europe is now synonymous with obscurantism and barbarism. Equality has to live with diversity and recognize the diversity of identities that exist in the world. In this framework, the vanguard is to recognize universal citizenship and the recognition that unitary Plurinational States can be built respecting the pluriculturality of identities and nations that coexist in each territory. In Polanyi’s diagnosis of the rise of fascism in the mid-twentieth century, he shows how xenophobic nationalism was a reaction against the enormous inequality caused by the free market. It was a social defense mechanism. In our days, in it’s own unique way, it seems that history repeats itself.
In the economic sphere, what are the transitions that make the transformation viable?
Globally, you might think that 2016 can be read as the year of the end of the long 20th century in historical terms. The Brexit, the victory of Trump and the death of Fidel symbolically mark a watershed in the correlation of forces worldwide, both political and economic. Only the rejection of Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific treaties and the exit of the EU from Great Britain configure another scenario in the world panorama. García Linera points out that it is the end of globalization. Personally I think it is the beginning of another globalization. Ecuador must think about that framework.
In these 10 years has been able to walk disputing the sense of the barbarism of what is capitalism but obviously within capitalism. The autistic left believes that it was viable to do it from another system. Impossible! Sometimes I feel that this left doesn’t understand what power means, while the right has a great understanding not only of its meaning but also how to exercise it.
In summary terms, I can point out that in the book I argue that in this decade there have been three actions (at different speeds) that are essential to continue disputing a great transformation:
1) a great deconcentration of capital;
2) a new original socio-ecological accumulation;
3) a large accumulation of physical capital.
It remains a task of the vanguard to build a form of productive organization where redistribution is produced and produced by distributing. We propose the construction of a social economy of knowledge built from a collaborative logic.
In these processes, other common meanings must be configured to break the hegemony of the exchange value and a new social value-based appropriation based on life and use value. We must break with the society that knows the price of everything, but knows the value of very few things. The construction and appropriation of such a sensibility is the urgent task of the second transition now in dispute.
Does the left that you call autistic point out that the big winners are the capitalists? What do you think about this assertion?
The decade is won because the whole society won. The difference is that in comparison with the preceding decade, these ten years before had a deliberate priority: the poor and the workers.
In my book I show how the growth during these 10 years went largely to the poor and working class. Participation in the pie (which, incidentally, doubled) decreased by 10% for the capitalists and was distributed among the workers and in that so-called mixed economy (for example, popular economy, cooperatives, etc.). In these ten years, decisions were made that disputed a de-accumulation of capitalist logic; that is, that it passes from hands -either in stock or in future flows- of the capitalists towards society, either directly or indirectly through the State.
Here are some examples: the compensation of the two biggest social robberies in the history of the country. With the audit of the external debt and the recovery of the bank bailout of 2000; the social recovery of oil revenues; the financing of the doubling of the human development bonus destined to the poorest financed with the profits of the private banks are examples of this deconcentration of capital.
In structural terms, we must be vigilant that the trade agreement does not entail a re-concentration of the accumulation in transnational capital and that the original accumulation produced in this decade will not serve to generate accumulation elsewhere, but will produce a larger concentration of wealth where the economy it is produced. This develops a domestic pattern of economic diversification and specialization.
Likewise, there has been a new accumulation of socio-ecological capital and a democratization of access to programs which enhance human capacities. Access to education, health care, social security. Avoiding the emission of 6.3 tons / year of CO2 as a consequence of the change in the matrix energy, etc. Is it not amazing that the average life of Ecuadorians has increased 5.5 years in the past decade?!
In this transition, it is important to develop non-speculative physical capital to make another types of accumulation viable: roads, hydroelectric plants, ports, airports, etc.
What we must have clear about is that in the current scenario there has been an accumulation that did not exist before. The right is rubbing his hands over this. After this wealth that did not exist before was created, the Right seeks to concentrate the benefits in a few hands on national and / or transnational capitalists. They want to freeze the increase in social spending for 20 year and, impose the elimination of the state’s obligation to guarantee initial and secondary education made public and free by Temer. They want a reduction of the government investment in Science and Technology a la Macri. Then there’s Lasso’s proposal to privatize social security so that each “one chooses” its provider in the name of freedom.
it is clear evidence of a new accumulation that the great capitals in our continent intend to do or are already doing after the social decade won by the progressive governments. The proposal of the right: the appropriation of human capacities and institutions of common interest. We must realize that in Argentina, and Brazil, for example, the dispute over transformation has become very opaque.
What should be the strategy?
In the contest to constitutionalize Ecuadorian society, we must be clear about the meaning of the history we are currently experiencing. A free flow of goods and services does not necessarily place us in the nexus of the world economy. As I point out in my book, it seems that 2017 will be the beginning of the 21st century.
That strategy is of the last century and would plunge us into the worst dependency in history. When I talk about the great transition in the book, I also point out that it is not a single transition, but two: the one that Ecuadorians sign and that is embodied in the constitutional text and the one that happens on a world scale: the transition from industrial capitalism to cognitive capitalism based both on processes of speculative financialization of the economy.
The new commercial policy will be directed towards the management of intellectual property. This strategy must then be linked to intelligent inclusion in the powerful circuits of generation of knowledge, technology and innovation. And all this within a framework that addresses the needs and potential of our peoples.
Unfortunately, I see very little debate about what is the role of science in social transformation and what strategy of technological development ought be followed in Ecuador’s coming decades. Ecuador will not get out of the development traps previous set unless it has a clear strategy of how to break the technological and cognitive dependence it has. And it must know how to defend the biodiversity that it has.
It is not fortuitous that in world treaties countries are forced to put in penal codes randing from sanctions to imprisonment when copyright or property rights are undermined. Yet nothing is done when the biodiversity of our countries is stolen! This is biopiracy!
In my book I proposed that the new geopolitics is already contesting this knowledge-biodiversity relationship. That is why, the strategy I propose is for bio-knowledge for the good living of our peoples and nationalities. Thank God we have oil, but we must also be clear that only through deliberate social collective action can we be a tertiary exporting country of knowledge and technology. Thank God we have Galapagos, but thanks to the will of the Ecuadorians we are building Innopolis.
What do you mean when you point to the little debate that takes place on these issues in the electoral process?
It is very sad to see how we have fallen into the democracy of the “encuestología”, that the government opposition consists simply in opposing everything the government has done according to their surveys. That is no proposal for how the future should be goverened. Not only that, if one analyzes what the candidates say, the country would fail sooner rather than later. Ecuador has no monetary policy towards the dollar, so trade policy may be cut for obvious reasons. This is heard in the proposals of the candidates who say they will lower taxes, will remove the tax at the exit of foreign currency or the advance of income tax, etc.
When the government put up safeguards, among other reasons, to defend dollarization, the right immediately went out to attack it. It wants to guarantee quality rights as in the ‘first world’, with a fourth world tax system. This is unfeasible! If such actions take place, Ecuador will soon have to exit dollarization (if the price of a barrel of oil changes radically upwards). I think we are in a very serious debate in the economic field in the electoral process.
One more point: the repressed past is being disputed. The right says: the government spent too much, now it is necessary to amend through sacrifice. It is punitive morality which seeks to induce fear and solve it by pointing to a scapegoat. In all the opposition speeches a negative messiah is announced and the pitiful tone of Ash Wednesday of the revolutionary carnival is heard. The left must continue to dispute the future, to hope, to embody the conviction that it is possible for all of us to live well, here, today and in this land called Ecuador. Let hope overcome fear!
What role do the media play in this dispute?
The media are the main tool of power used by the right to produce disenchantment and despair. The news, the newspapers try to build the society of fear, of suspicion, of distrust. The news that grows most in audience are the ones with the most blood. To this is added the social networks. This new public sphere allows anonymous trolls to defame without any public responsibility.
Their strategy of pyramidalization (I think this means reinforcing hegemony) when trying to generate the news of the week is clear: they use the massive media and the big ‘influencers’ who have many followers in their social network accounts. Not those who are random private media journalists. Therefore, one of the main principles that must be challenged in tofay’s democracy is truth and defense of the public sphere.
As a citizen I would expect that any candidate for the Presidency of my country will always be attached to the truth and have the courage, in case of being wrong, to clarify and ask for public apology for the mistake they made. Not that lying ought be used as a deliberate strategy to win votes. That is the strategy of a right without morals. We must be clear that there will be no quality democracy as long as there is no ethics in politics and as long as the truth does not reign in the public sphere.
There is a left that indicates that it has been a wasted decade. What do you think?
I agree with the point made by Emir Sader: for those that see is as wasteful decade, it is because they wasted the decade. The question asked by the Brazilian sociologist is pertinent: if governments like the Citizen Revolution are responsible for the return of the right, as these groups usually affirm, then why is this ‘ultra left’ not strengthened? Because they have not taken advantage of the weakening of progressive governments and thus taken their place? No. It is simple. It is because they have no popular base and their arguments have not penetrated any sector of the population.
This left should learn that they are also responsible for their actions or non-actions. Unfortunately, the right has been much more astute and efficient in political terms than this left. It is no coincidence that this left in the next elections has no direct spokesperson as a presidential candidate. A left without a town, it is not a left. In this sense, it seems that the left noun remained large. Yes, they have wasted this decade!
What is the role of politics in this regard?
Perhaps as important as the viability of the contest is that the same described transition has been made within a democratic and peaceful framework. The process of social reconfiguration, having these characteristics, has allowed us to recover the trust in the other and above all the capacity of citizen astonishment in the face of social injustice – which has allowed people to move from indignant anger to the hope of a mindful citizen hope. The right is astute in pointing out that institutional confidence, citizen’s hope in and the recovery of politics are the main weapons that progressive processes have to move forward.
In this context, it is vital for the right to disenchant, to despair of citizenship and to dismantle the image of politics as a space to create a just social order. In this framework, it is necessary to understand political action as a means but also as an end to the process of change. In this way, political action must create a virtuous circle, based on actors that support and push change, and that the change they sustain and support strengthens them. Faced with the society of mistrust and fear that the right seeks to establish as a common sense, one of the main challenges that Lenín Moreno has is to restrain the citizenry – as he does- in order to continue with the hopeful spirit we have had in these 10 years, which implies generating another aesthetic in politics.
Twitter log in could have worked
In English, the benefits are:
Some of these sock puppet profiles even list Instagram accounts which, perhaps unsurprisingly, don’t have any posts.
