I Was Always Trying To See You Through The Noise from KARBORN on Vimeo.
Dear CommunityAnother week of living during a pandemic is behind us. Between the virus itself and the images flooding social media from the race protests in the US and across the world, everything feels pretty chaotic right now.
We are in uncharted territory and it feels like we are swimming through vast amounts of information each day. Whether this data is accurate, inaccurate, weaponised, divisive, healing, conciliatory or contradictory, as a society we are feeling at a loss with how to interpret and analyse it.
At EdgeRyders we have often spoken about the dangers of misinformation but this week we have increasingly questioned our inability to interpret what lies between the accurate and the inaccurate.
How can, and is, this grey information being shaped into a narrative that perpetuates a cycle of repression, violence and exclusion? Racism exists in the US, it is visible. But how do people react to information that racial transgressions happen closer to home?
This week we started a conversation to learn who is doing better when it comes to interpreting information and what can we learn from them? One of our members has asked if there are any communities where disinformation is less prevalent and if these models could be used to build a better internet.
We are also learning to see through the noise. We had a webinar with the research institute DeLab and its data scientists to help interpret the information from a big data project they undertook on Covid 19. Some of the results are really interesting - take a look here and feel free to comment if you have any thoughts on how to approach the interpretation of data.
We’ve also been thinking about how we can constructively act on information to help us cope and support one another through challenging situations. Like rebuilding livelihoods in crashing economies which will be a large topic discussed at out “Making a Living” Summit later this year.
Our first presummit listening session focused on community-oriented food projects. Our next session takes place on June 22 and brings together higher education workers and policymakers, human rights defenders and unionists to discuss labour conditions over the past two decades.
Food for thought
One of our co-founders has created an amazing visualized representation of EdgeRyders’ story since it was first established eight years ago. You can take a look at the video that shows over 70,000 posts written by our registered platform users.
Take care and have a thoughtful week.
Video art: Structure: I Was Always Trying To See You Through The Noise by Karborn