Factual Dispatch #23: Hong Kong Rises & Facial Recognition Fumbles

(Huge thanks to Factual Dispatch’s first guest editor Simon Li, who was gracious enough to ensure I didn’t get lost in translation with the whirlwind of news out of the South China Sea this week.)

I’ve only been to Hong Kong once, but it remains one of my favorite places in this world. Taking NYC and slapping Tokyo on top of it, then making it the Gateway to Asia, produced a megatropolis the likes of which this planet has never seen before. Over the years, between the Umbrella Revolution & Occupy Central actions before it, Hong Kong has become a laboratory for organizing and creeping authoritarianism. Last Sunday saw one of the largest coordinated protest activities in the history of humanity, with an estimated 1 out of 7 in Hong Kong attending, potentially topping out at over 1,000,000 people showing up to be mad in the same place.

The protest was driven by Hong Kong’s leaders deliberating a new extradition law that would allow China to extradite not only Hong Kong residents, but also users of the Hong Kong airport. Which means anyone passing through the Gateway of Asia who had ever pissed off the Chinese Communist Party was fair game. For everyone not playing the home game, Hong Kong has remained a bastion of liberal capitalism, expatriate harmony, and quietly friendly financiers since the handover from the UK back when millennials were in high school.

However, this new law threatens to loudly demonstrate the limits that neo-liberal capitalist protections have when it comes to progress. Not only would it immediately destabilize the Hong Kong economy, it would undermine a culture that millions have fought hard for. And I do mean HARD. The people of Hong Kong are GOOD at protesting. They are annoyingly good at protesting, protecting reporters covering protests, adapting to changing times, expunging their digital presence during protests, and are not taking kindly to Xi Jinping’s need to signal power during such an auspicious year.

Sunday’s protests were followed on Wednesday with some of the most effective direct action I’ve ever seen. The cops responded by using pepper spray back packs (No, seriously, pressurized water capsaicin spray) and various tactics the world deemed “excessive force” but Americans would call “a polite disagreement with law enforcement.” Most importantly, the Hong Kong leadership chose not to invite the Chinese Army or enact a curfew, although Carrie Lam did attempt to push the bill again that evening.

Joined by the press (seen above - Helmets, gas masks, and high visibility vests are worn by Hong Kong protesters to prevent injury if hit by tear gas canisters), businesses, porn sites and the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong, the protests resulted in the shuttering of the legislature for “lack of quorum.” This action allowed the Hong Kong leadership to save face, but not withdraw the bill entirely. The bill hasn’t been withdrawn, but the leadership is sufficiently frazzled that the protesters felt comfortable going home, for now.

As of the time of this writing, Admiralty is clear and quiet. The evening before, protesters cleaned up and sung hymns quietly in the sunset, to emphasize the difference in energy and remind the world what’s at stake. In response, Chinese state organs censored “Hong Kong” on WeChat, clutched at their pearls after the fact, accusing the Trump administration of inciting the protest (lollerskates), and decrying the violence perpetrated by the protesters defending themselves against police in riot gear, which was shown to have taken place after the protest had ended. This resulted in a set of posts that were uncensored, that protesters swarmed to deliver anti-propaganda messages.

During the week, the US State Department issued a strongly worded statement that surprised many China watchers. But, because the bill hasn’t been shelved, and both the CCP and HK administrators are still pantomiming progress towards it being signed, this is far from over. New Zealand blocked extradition to China this week, seemingly in response to the protests, and Hong Kong organizers are planning for a long fight. Google took some heat this morning for providing pro-Beijing Simplified & Traditional Chinese translations of stories, so be careful and triple check your sources. Or, ask someone for help, like I did. We’re all in this together. #OneStruggle

Facial Recognition Fumbles

While Hong Kong fights for its soul, the rest of the world lurches toward facial recognition, even though the research evaluating the security and effectiveness of current iterations does not inspire confidence. With Trump’s ICE beginning to target visitors who overstay their visas, and China’s law enforcement expanding use of facial recognition glasses, it’s a good time to look at how well these programs are actually doing. Checking in with Customs & Border Patrol:

That’s right, a subcontractor for the CBP admitted that they got hacked and a database of traveler photos and corresponding identifying information, generated from a lane/window at a Port of Entry over 45 days, was copied. Anyone who travels often knows this is a huge problem, given the CBP’s plan to implement a “biometric entry-exit system” at the behest of Our Great Leader. Of course, this process is being fast-tracked, with 20 airports beginning to see its use. The idea that the tech might not be ready for the big game, that civil rights advocates might not be cool with it, or even that there are regulatory guardrails in place to prevent abuse of this data, is clearly ludicrous according to its proponents. 

Remember, even Amazon’s facial recognition tech incorrectly matched the faces of 28 current members of Congress to mugshots, mostly minorities. Even the government’s own order admits that the tech is in no way ready for widespread public adoption. The FBI may think facial recognition tech is ready, but Congress doesn’t. Microsoft recently removed a database of faces from the internet after the Financial Times raised questions about how the data was acquired. In China, a woman reported a co-worker was able to unlock her phone using FaceID. But these missteps aren’t world-ending to those who stand to make a ton of money from facial recognition being sold as an enterprise software solution to police forces and even other countries. If this seems all very far off, remember that facial recognition is now in use by dozens of police departments at the local, city, or even state level now. Even though it’s been proven that cops were knowingly abusing or altering images within the system to match suspects to crimes. While Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has raised the alarm, unless we speak up, Black Mirror will stop being fiction before we know it.

Eye-Watering Data Visualization of the Week: Quartz published an exceptional series of infographics, matching country GDP to total capitalization of a company.

Vaguely Dystopian News of the Week: The deluge of fake news has had the secondary effect of more and more people rejecting expertise, knowledge, and information wholesale. Also, Google now knows how fast you’re going. Also also, the Saudis are tracking runaway women using IMEI numbers.

“Huh, Interesting” Reads of the Week: Scruffy Hospitality is that thing you do when the friends you don’t care about impressing come over, and we should all do it more. Also, two indigenous Latin American tribes used to dose their hunting dogs with psychedelics, in case you wanted to imagine the worst nightmare of a Tapeti (Brazillian Cottontail).Annoying-But-Correct Takes of the Week: Political violence can’t happen in America the way it does in other places, so stop saying you want a revolution. Also, picking Biden isn’t smart thinking, it’s Stockholm Syndrome.

Royal Sampler

The Trump Tax Cut’s latest victims? Truckers (NBC News)

Small-town radio is dying along with local newspapers, further cementing the information desert a lot of rural communities are becoming. (The Guardian)

Prophetic call from a programmer/Cassandra named Kathy Sierra in 2014, detailing the coming age of disinformation and Troll Brigades (Wired)

22 of 55 nations in Africa ratified the continent’s first Free Trade Zone. If successful, it would envelop 1.2 Billion Africans. (Bloomberg)

47,173 people killed themselves in America in 2017. 70% of them were white men, and we’re only starting to understand why. (Rolling Stone)

Tech Bros & VCs claim the value of expanding internet access to the next billion is that they’ll use it to get jobs and push up their wages. How India’s developing communities have taken to the internet as a form of cheap leisure, connection, and way to “timepass" is a fascinating take down of that argument. (The Economist)

Employers steal more in wages than all forms of larceny combined. Every year. (EPI)

Hubert Horan provides a compelling case that it’s not just Uber’s run of bad behavior and unforced errors that contributed to its lackluster IPO, but in fact that Uber’s fundamentals themselves are unsound. (American Affairs)

An exhaustive look at how the real estate market could get swallowed by Big Tech, Zillow might be the right entity to sell your house to in a few years. (Pure Alpha)

While Huawei might claim total independence from the CCP, their PR playbook might demand another look. (Foreign Policy)

Rashida Tlaib’s idea to restructure the EITC and Child Tax Credit should make everyone in DC sit up in their chair. (The Week)

Dunk of the Week:

Thanks for reading, I think you’re going to like what’s in store for Factual Dispatch this year. Stick around, and if you’re feeling charitable, tell your friends!T