Samuel C Talbott

Description

This is a multi-day annotation project which displays both the use of the Hypothes.is browser extension and the value it has brought through the repeated annotation of a single PDF. Over three rounds of annotations, my thinking developed along new lines guided by the comments I had left myself earlier. Each set is shown below with screenshots for context.

Round 1

My initial commentary largely described the utility I saw in the use of Private Military Security Companies (PMSCs) and the examples of their use which seemed valuable to my research. Much of this ties into other works I have read or previous papers I have written.

Round 2

My second round of annotations expanded upon the first. I became interested in the comparison between PMSCs (primarily employed by NATO factions and Russia) and the unofficial maritime militias used by China. My original plan had been to study the PMSCs used in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian War and the legal status of foreign legion troops, but the Chinese side of the equation became much more interesting at this point and drew my attention away.

Round 3

The final annotations are focused on deepening the lines of inquiry I set up during the second round. I continued on the topic of Chinese maritime militias, wondering how far the contracts they operate under are from those given to western PMSCs. I also revise a previous comment I made about the nature of PMSCs. While these organizations are on long-term contracts to the states they are based in, this does not mean that their members are citizens of that state. In that regard, the charge of mercenarism is still very much on the table for PMSCs taken prisoner in modern conflicts.

Conclusion

Using Hypothes.is has been both new and familiar to me. In the past, I have normally taken notes in a separate document open to one side of my screen, so the act of electronic note-taken is nothing out of the ordinary for me. Annotating directly (and, more importantly, repeatedly) onto a PDF feels different in part because there is less impetus for me to keep things tidy – the program is doing that for me. At the same time, this method forces me to scroll back through the PDF to view my annotations, making accessibility more difficult in post. I can see myself using a combination of the methods in the future, perhaps alternating depending on the type and density of the text I’m working with.

Algorithms of Oppression offers insight into the ways in which efforts to optimize search engines have undermined the accurate dissemination of information to the detriment of its users. I have never found search engines particularly useful for scholarly purposes and this text goes a long way towards explaining why. These engines are not simply affected by confirmation bias, but actively (if perhaps unconsciously) implement it. Simple answers friendly to existing user beliefs are promoted; complex answers that would be valuable to scholars are pushed downward.

When considering the effect this has on my own field (I specialize in Late Antique History), the “Fall of Rome” came to mind. Few subjects in Late Antiquity elicit such consistent debate, of course, but I specifically recalled a conversation from a year or two ago with my grandmother who, attempting to learn more about what I was working on academically, had looked into the Roman Empire’s collapse on the internet. The searches she conducted provided her with a simple and painfully outdated explanation fond of the term “barbarian invasion.” With her experience in mind, I typed “Fall of Rome” into three search engines on my own. I have included screenshots of the initial search results below.

Google has tossed its “AI Overview” at the top of the page. The description of what the Empire’s collapse was is decent enough, but the “causes” section becomes concerning rapidly, listing out unchallenged a number of highly controversial reasons that remain under intense debate in the scholarly community. Each item the AI provides has a link attached to it, but a user must follow it to its source website to see the citation; none is provided written out on the search page.

Bing, to its credit, offers a centralized set of information all pointing back to the subject’s Wikipedia page. Short of diving into real scholarly works, this is probably the best set of information it could provide a user on the subject. Things fall off quickly afterwards, however. Beyond the initial Wikipedia information, the search results provide a set of sponsored websites, all offering tours of the city of Rome.

I expected to see some kind of modern political content crop up given the prevalence of the “Fall of Rome” narrative in American conservative circles, but Ecosia has proven my point better than I had anticipated. The top slot on this search was occupied by none other than Hillsdale College attempting to market a box set of DVDs on Roman history. I will let the description the institution has provided in the search results speak for itself.

In each case, the search engine has done the user hoping to find information on the collapse of the Roman Empire a disservice. At best, the engines are burying them in almost entirely unrelated advertisements; at worst, directing them to modern propaganda. It is no wonder that my grandmother found little useful information on the subject. For all the convenience they provide, these search engines have done little to make information on this subject more accessible to the public.