How can we users contribute to better protect "crowd sourcing" projects like GBIF, OSM, Wikipedia and others against misuse?

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I’m posting this to get your perspective on a fundamental issue that has been on my mind for several years, one that is uncomfortable and painful, and for which I hope you can find arguments I haven’t considered, allowing me to better form my own opinion.

INaturalist’s relation to GBIF was a major reason for me to join the community.

Crowdsourcing projects like Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap (OSM), and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) have significantly broadened the reach of the internet, and the added value they generate for achieving both collective and individual goals is immeasurable.
Unfortunately, this added value has never translated into proportional funding in dollars and euros for these projects, and the individual goals of a few companies have ensured that, for example, through Google Maps, AI-driven advertising revenue, and similar ways, literally billions of dollars are funneled into their coffers—money that is not available to the public. At INaturalist, we are indirectly involved in these tragic circumstances through our contribution to GBIF, mostly because the latest information technology is literally able to digest everything and turn it to money by commercial services.

We can’t turn back the clock. An initiative by individual states won’t be able to reverse the situation. And from a sociological perspective, I don’t see how the companies, profiting from this, could even fulfill their social responsibility through self-restraint (…and please don’t suggest donations. Even if a fig leaf is depicted as clothing in the holy Bible, and although given by God, i call it a fig leaf).

So, the responsibility must remain with the creators of the tool, the ‘community,’ which is us. And the tool is being repurposed and misused by some and is ceating imbalance an does harm. How can we as creators contribute to stop this misuse?

Or is the only way to - stop individual contributions and hope that ‘common sense’ will eventually prevail-?

The insects I photograph don’t care about any of this, and I’m no longer sure if I’m doing them more harm than good.

Are crowdsourcing projects simply the Pyramids of Giza, generated by a naive baby boomer generation?

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We have long threads of published research using iNat data. I take that as a net positive. Baby boomer hoping the next and next generation will turn away from the environmental damage done by the 3 generations around mine. Extinction Rebellion. Or not ? Day Zero but Must Have GREEN Lawn ? https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/847956/one-of-south-africas-semigration-hotspots-in-serious-trouble/

That is frightening - I wanted Brenton Blue butterfly to pull the focus back to iNat. We have ONE obs but from 2016. ‘Possibly extinct’.

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I don’t understand Anfra1969’s argument. Can anyone summarise it please?

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Can you expand on this please?

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It this is about finance and funding ?

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/taking-a-look-at-inaturalists-latest-form-990-2024/74540

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My idea was to support the preservation of species and it’s habitat through government agencies and volunteer activists. This while funding and support is increasingly difficult to get. Also, supporting the education of others and contributing data to research projects fall along that line.
On the other hand, for some people, species preservation is only an obstacle, and making the occurence of a biotope or a species in need for protection visible may then put it in danger.
I have seen critically endangered species survive because nobody knew they were there. But i witnessed three cases, where environmental activists “improved the situation” and made the habitat collapse.
On the larger scale, if my little data contribution is my two cents in supporting the hyper-rich getting even richer through their data engines, then it is also my contribution to their lobbyism and manipulations and that the governments are getting more and more toothless.

Today, climate change and nature preservation are no longer in focus due to this reason. And if my beetles would have an opinion, they wouldn’t like it.
Most of them may say: Just go away and leave me alone.

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I’m another reader who doesn’t understand or comprehend some of the connections you are making in your discussion. Could you please explain how “Google Maps, AI-driven advertising revenue, and similar ways..” can profit by accessing GBIF information? Or more importantly, if some collective information resource like GBIF exists for the benefit of scientific study and is accessible to me, what do for-profit companies have to do with my interaction with GBIF?

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Up to there I’m with you, but then I’m afraid I can’t follow the connection, sorry.

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GBIF makes data available to everybody, independent from profit or non-profit orientation, private, governmental, or corporate, and independent from good or bad intentions regarding nature preservation. In the past, one could argue that the evaluation of such data for profit is rather unlikely.
But with the most recent developments, this has changed. Profit-oriented organizations lke Google, Meta or Microsoft literally drill into all sorts of structured data because their “intelligent” systems can manage it. They do it to increase their tool’s capability, give them width, increase general acceptance and advertising revenue and at the same time prepare new business cases for their services.
Example:
You inherit property and want to assess its value. There’s a small start- up company, which offers you such service at a moderate price. Part of the assessment is the environmental status of your land.
The company runs an LLM query on GBIF data with a list of species or habitats as input, which will likely create pushback for the commercial use of the land.
The result of the assessment is that you can multiply the value of your land just by avoiding conflict with nature preservation and that the key is getting rid of the little pond in the center of the property, which is not yet protected while nobody knows the new owner’s interests.
How likely is it that the pond and its inhabitants will survive?

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I am still struggling. Is this a correct interpretation?

You feel that by contributing data to GBIF, information becomes freely available to property developers and that enables them to see if their property holds rare wildlife, and to destroy the habitat before it can be protected. Therefore it would be better not to give information to GBIF and similar free data sources.

I agree that scenario could happen. But I think there is a greater risk to biodiversity if no one knows it is there. If every record of wildlife has to come from a fully paid-for survey, the information is going to belong to whoever pays for the survey. And who can better afford to pay for surveys - the property developers who make millions of dollars/pounds/whatever from their projects, or the wildlife conservationists who generally have to beg for money to carry out their activities?

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The core cofounder of Wikipedia left fairly early, my understanding is that he felt editing was increasingly biased and losing the “neutral point of view” guideline editors are supposed to follow. From what I know of him he also has a principled and idealistic personality which is consistent with your “naive baby boomer” description although I think that kind of personality is present in any generation. There has also been a lot of drama about the power and influence of specific biased editors, and the amount of funding that the Wikimedia Foundation receives compared to what is needed to maintain its needs and how the rest is utilized. All of this carries with it political tensions, and I think political polarization in a platform is itself a problem that makes things particularly difficult to discuss well. Thankfully iNat doesn’t have nearly as much of that particular issue, I think because what iNat produces doesn’t have the same level of political implications. There are some tendencies which may be universal in organizations as they get larger, and others which particular organizations are more susceptible to due to their focuses. I’m not sure if getting into the weeds of the problems of each organization is beneficial to this discussion though.

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Having gone through and survived the “Warbler Wars” in Central Texas in the 1980s-90s-2000s (personally and professionally), I am fully aware of the complexities surrounding information on sensitive habitats and species including its collection (or not), dissemination (or not), and use (or abuse) by private and public institutions and government entities. That is what perked my interest in your OP.

Here’s a simple perspective: knowledge is power, and the best outcomes for science and the natural world will always be based on the free, full, and ready dissemination of the best available information. There always has been, and always will be, the potential for misuse of natural history data. That is always a possibility. Should that dissuade the larger community from gathering, recording, and disseminating the information? Absolutely NOT…with the prominent exception of protecting the precise locations of highly sensitive and sedentary species of plants and animals.

And in that last caveat, @anfra1969 and I probably share a similar nervousness about the potential abuse of public data by the corporate world. The proper response to those concerns may differ from region to region, but in any case I don’t think removal or withholding of data from important public repositories is an effective strategy.

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You got my point.
It was easier before to defend data publication facing potential abuse because extracting, assessing, and bringing data into context was a substantial and labor intense effort.
This is changing now!
Maybe I’m too pessimistic, but I am much afraid that using GBIF for preservation will be soon less effective than abusing it for personal profit if the latter is supported by intelligent datamining services.

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I tend to agree that INat is special because it is more specific. The level of political implications is much different. But if the data it publishes can now be more efficiently abused against its primary goal of nature preservation and with no additional layer of protection against abuse put in place, then I still consider this as relevant to environmental politics because it empowers and strengthens the wrong people.

But I see, I am still stuck in this post with the “if …need to better protect what we do”.
Personally, I answered this question to myself six months ago with “yes” .
My hope actually was that someone would have a new creative answer to the “how”.

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  • I think “semigration” is short for “semi-migration”
  • “Semigration” is a term mostly used in South Africa. I have never heard of this term before.
  • “Semigration” refers to internal migration. South Africans moving from one region of the country, to another. Often moving to Diana’s area of SA (Western Cape province).
  • The term has been used more frequently in recent years in SA

Is that right, Diana?

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I’m rather afraid that the only answer to “how” is not to share the data on the internet in any way or form.

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Thanks, Chuck! I didn’t know about the Warbler Wars.

Speaking of warblers and GCWA, Chuck explains his username in the first few seconds of this video. I get inspired every time I watch it. It truly embodies the spirit of iNat!

https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/17268-an-interview-with-gcwarbler

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It is. Everyone wants to move to Cape Town. (I was born here - but mother from London and father from New Zealand)

We supposedly have a better run municipality compared to the rest of the country. But marine outfalls (sewage to the sea) Culling baboons in favour of development. Privatising public land for profit. Most of my hiking group, neighbours on our street - have ‘come to Cape Town’

When I go thru today’s obs on the Cape Peninsula I see familiar iNat faces visiting too.

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Because I had difficulty understanding it, I did wonder whether the first post in this topic was generated by AI, which would be ironic given that it rails against AI companies. So I now want to claim first use of the term that describes such a situation: AI-ronic.

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Although I also considered this, the user seems to not be a native english speaker and often has this style of writing