FRIENDS OF ASOR WEBINARS
Antiquities Trafficking in the Age of Social Media: How Big Tech Facilitates and Profits from the Digital Black Market
Friends of ASOR present the next webinar in our monthly series on January 26, 2023, at 6:00pm EST, featuring Katie A. Paul and moderated by Prof. Eric Cline. From the invasion of Ukraine to conflict in Syria, tech platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok have democratized global engagement in black markets. A new generation of tech-driven traffickers are capitalizing on Big Tech’s unregulated algorithms to maximize reach. Tech companies and traffickers alike profit from crime, providing monetization tools for antiquities looters to make money even without a sale.
When it comes to trafficking of cultural heritage and the financing of terrorism and organized crime, Big Tech platforms like Facebook and YouTube have provided digital toolkits that not only facilitate, but also accelerate the black market in cultural property while lining the pockets of both terror groups and tech companies alike.
Since 2018, the ATHAR Project has tracked networks of black-market antiquities trafficking groups across Facebook and other Big Tech platforms and documented thousands of artifacts trafficked in private and public Facebook groups to preserve critical evidence of looting and trafficking in the MENA region.
Technology companies have largely allowed traffickers and extremists to utilize these tools with impunity. The reach provided by Big Tech platforms has added a new dimension to terror finance and transnational crime, enabling illicit actors to more effectively traffic artifacts and finance their activities.
Facebook announced a ban of the trade of artifacts on its platform in June 2020. But a policy is only as valuable as its enforcement, and despite our multiple efforts to report antiquities trafficking content, Facebook makes no attempt to enforce their policy. Facebook is essentially knowingly facilitating the trafficking of cultural property that can amount to war crimes—and profiting from it.
No innovation of this kind has previously been so readily available to terror groups, transnational criminal organizations, or the average looter as it is today. The ATHAR Project’s years of research on Big Tech’s antiquities black market gives new insights into the next generation of traffickers and the type of regulation needed to reel in the growth of online black markets.
Join Katie Paul as she exposes the illegalities that lurk in plain sight on your favorite social media platforms. The webinar will conclude with a live Q&A session moderated by Prof. Eric Cline (The George Washington University).
Katie A. Paul (@AnthroPaulicy) is an anthropologist and investigative researcher who serves as the director of the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), where she specializes in tracking extremism, disinformation, and criminal activity on online platforms such as Facebook. She also serves as co-director and co-founder of the Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research (ATHAR) Project and a founding member of the Alliance to Counter Crime Online (ACCO) where she focuses on trafficking, terror finance, and organized crime facilitated by Big Tech platforms.
Previously, Katie served as chief of staff and a research fellow at the Antiquities Coalition, a Washington, DC-based non-profit dedicated to combating cultural racketeering. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Miami University (OH) with a double major in Anthropology and Ancient Greek and earned an M.A. in Anthropology at The George Washington University.
This webinar will be recorded and all paid registrants will be sent a link to view the recording.
ASOR Sustaining Members: $0 | ASOR Members: $6 | Public: $12
Season Pass: ASOR Sustaining Members: $0 | ASOR Members: $75 | Public: $150
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To receive your ASOR member discount, log into the online store. If you are new to ASOR, please click on the “New Visitor Registration” link to register your e-mail address and choose a password for our online store. Once logged in, navigate to “Meeting and Event Registration” to register for the webinar and pay the fee. Each paid registrant will receive a confirmation e-mail when you pay for the webinar. If you do not receive this e-mail, then you are not registered. Please e-mail membership@asor.org with any questions or issues with registering.
You will be e-mailed the Zoom Webinar link in the week prior to the lecture on January 26, 2023. If you do not receive the link by the close of business two days before the webinar, please e-mail membership@asor.org immediately. This webinar will be recorded and all paid registrants will be sent a link to view the recording.
All proceeds from this webinar are used to fund scholarships for members as well as increasing ASOR’s online resources, which are free to the public.
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Log into our online store to purchase the season pass for 2022-2023. If you are new to ASOR and do not have a record in our store yet, click here to register. After you login, navigate to the left to “Meeting and Event Registration.” Please e-mail membership@asor.org if you have any questions or issues.
