Social media and public discourse in Mongolia www.fes-asia.org

Social media is a dominating force in public discourse. In the case of Mongolia, proactive and transparent use by public health authorities has helped limiting the spread and impact of misinformation, populist messages and fear.

The impact of social media on Mongolia’s young and fragile democracy is ambivalent. On the one hand, there is a clear benefit from more direct and open communication of politicians, journalists, and scientists. But on the other hand, digital populism with all its detrimental effects on democratic discourse has been rising for several years.

Creating trust in public health authorities

In Mongolia, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the more positive aspects of social media’s impact on society. Surely Facebook, and to a lesser extent Twitter, were used for increased attempts of social media fraud, hacking, fake charities, fake news, and the spread of misinformation. But important, though, was its successful proactive use by the Ministry of Health.

Since January, the ministry has been providing daily updates on COVID-19, informing the public on the global spread of the virus, the country’s number of cases, and measures the ministry is taking. Those briefings quickly became the main source of information for the public and limited the potential spread of misinformation and fear significantly. In addition to its regular updates, the government developed information dashboards, infographics, a series of cartoon videos advising kids for prevention measures, and translated materials, which help equipping the public with knowledge and information while building trust in public health measures.

Changing the tone of public discourse

Mongolia also can serve as an example of how social media can set and change the tone in public discourse on certain issues. The first COVID-19 case that hit Mongolia was recorded on 15 March 2020. The patient, who has now recovered, was a French citizen who did not follow the two-week self-isolation warning when he entered the country. At first, the situation escalated quickly when Mongolians expressed their discontent, calling out on all foreigners for having a neo-colonial attitude by ignoring the country’s strict quarantine rules. But quickly the tone of this conversation shifted from discriminatory to compassionate after a letter from a Mongolian grade 5 student to the French patient was made public. The letter expressed the girl’s concerns for the French patient’s physical and mental health. Although the letter was not published through Facebook, a photo of that letter emerged on the platform and went viral. The French citizen’s reply and its translation followed suit and went viral as well. Subsequently, hatred gave way to compassion. The Frenchman was even awarded a Mongolian nickname: Ankh-Otgon, which loosely translates to First-Last, meaning that he was hoped to be the first and last case of COVID-19 in Mongolia. This kind of positive viral story demonstrates how quickly the tone of public attitude and behaviours can be changed on social media.

Criticizing government actions

Another hot topic on social media was the evacuation of Mongolians stranded abroad. Since all known cases of COVID-19 in Mongolia were imported from abroad, public opinion was (and still is) split on the issue of Mongolians returning home. A large-scale repatriation effort would naturally lead to an increased risk to those already in the country. Many families with relatives stuck abroad, most of them in hard hit countries like the US, China and South Korea, criticized the government for not doing enough. Frustrated citizens took matters on social media, calling out the government or the State Emergency Commission for selecting citizens for repatriation based on their power, money, and relationships. Those citizens are getting organized in a Facebook group (11,790 members) demanding action from the President and the Prime Minister of Mongolia. In addition, the movement also calls family and friends in Mongolia to “Do not Forgive – Do not Vote”.

The parliamentary election scheduled for 24 June complicates this matter even further. Parties and candidates are using social media as their main communication platform. Without bringing in many of the stranded citizens, the parliamentary election could be overshadowed by the new public movement, while at the same time, evacuating citizens prior to the election could mean increased public health risk.

Social media is instantaneous and more viral than the current pandemic in reaching people. These stories from Mongolia affirm the possible positive impact of social media in the current crisis by building solidarity and offering tools for citizen to get organized and voice their concerns.

Mongolia reports 7 new COVID-19 cases, 6 recoveries www.xinhuanet.com

Mongolia's National Center for Communicable Disease reported seven new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the nationwide tally to 148.

Mongolia Mobile App Lets Citizens Say Where Taxes Get Spent www.asiafoundation.org

The promise of technology to engage citizens and transform the ways we manage cities is no longer a dream. Today it’s a necessity, and cities across the globe are eagerly trying new approaches, improving their online platforms, and making more and better use of technology.

Even before social distancing became a troublesome necessity, Mongolia’s capital city, Ulaanbaatar, had been increasing the pace of its transition to online platforms and tools, and the benefits of these timely preparations can be seen vividly in the city’s response to Covid-19. In the best of times, these improvements—using websites, mobile applications, databases, remote sensors, and other tools—can deliver urban services more efficiently and create new pathways for citizen engagement. During the pandemic, they are giving citizens new ways to stay involved in their democracy and make their voices heard on important civic matters, even while practicing social distancing and limiting in-person gatherings.

The ger districts of Ulaanbaatar are sprawling, unplanned neighborhoods that suffer from unequal access to basic public services including electricity, water, waste and sewage disposal, and heating. (Photo: Tsegts Media, 2020)

The Asia Foundation’s Urban Governance Project, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, is an ongoing collaboration with the Municipality of Ulaanbaatar (MUB) to find creative new approaches to public services and civic engagement. As part of this effort, the project has been working with MUB to launch an electronic voting tool that will allow citizens to register their opinions on local infrastructure priorities. The new system is integrated with MUB’s existing SmartUB mobile application, which has already made its mark as a digital platform for improvements in urban governance.

The new electronic voting tool allows users to weigh in on investments by the Local Development Fund (LDF), which allocates monies provided by the national government for local projects to improve the urban environment. The LDF is a pioneering experiment in participatory budgeting, the only one like it in Mongolia. LDF voting in the past has relied on paper-based household questionnaires—one response per household—followed up with local community meetings, but social-distancing restrictions to fight Covid-19 have taken this traditional approach off the table for the 2020 cycle. So, for the first time, MUB has moved to a fully online voting system.

The 2018 and 2019 trials of the voting app, in limited areas of the city, collected 13,000 and 76,000 votes, respectively. For 2020, the app was scaled up to cover the entire city. Roughly 347,000 citizens—159,000 men and 187,000 women—participated in the process and shared their opinions, a remarkable 43 percent of the eligible population.

Bagakhangai, Nalaikh, and Chingeltei districts piloted the SmartUB mobile app in 2018 and 2019 and had the highest rates of participation in 2020. The participation rate in Bagakhangai district was greater than 100% due to a government decision to register internal migrants in that district during Q1, a practice previously banned, resulting in more eligible voters than the previous year’s official figure.Enabling household members to vote individually was one of the key improvements made possible by the mobile application, allowing men and women young and old, not just household heads, to make their own opinions heard. Where voting had previously been restricted to one vote per household, the fully deployed e-voting system gave a vote to every citizen.To support the citywide deployment, local government officials were active at the neighborhood level, calling residents and offering guidance and support for elderly citizens and those who had trouble with the technology.

In ger khoroos, both men and women voted for public safety, in the form of streetlights and closed-circuit television (CCTV), as well as other redevelopment priorities.

The new voting app also significantly improves operational efficiency at the city’s smallest administrative unit, the khoroo. Collecting citizen inputs every year had been a major undertaking. Distributing and retrieving paper questionnaires and entering the data were extremely laborious. And despite the hard work, the process could not guarantee an accurate portrait of the popular will, because of the restricted participation and shortage of resources for data analysis.

Furthermore, the lack of an effective communication channel back to respondents to share information about which projects were chosen and completed, combined with doubts that LDF community meetings represented a true cross-section of the community, limited the perceived quality of engagement, and citizens often remained uninformed of final decisions.

In non-ger khoroos, closed-circuit television, childrens’ playgrounds, and a greener environment were the most-voted-for infrastructure improvements among both men and women.

The new LDF mobile application solves a number of these problems. Automatic data aggregation and visualizations allow both decision-makers and citizens to track the polling results with useful tables and graphs. The app has also significantly reduced the burden of data management and analysis for local officials.

Uranchimeg Sonom, an official of the fourth khoroo in Ulaanbaatar’s Baganuur District, says, “I collected citizen votes on the LDF using paper forms for five years, and it was a very lengthy process.” In 2018, Baganuur District became one of the first to pilot and then adopt the electronic voting system in all of its khoroos. Uranchimeg says the fourth khoroo was able to build ramps, communal wells, and bus stops using the LDF app’s voting results to set priorities.

A bridge funded by the LDF provides a shorter route for citizens to get water from communal wells. (Photo: Tsegts Media, 2020)

With the 2020 e-vote now complete, the review of the data has begun. Looking across the city, those living in apartment complexes mostly voted for children’s playgrounds, more green areas, and the installation of more security cameras. Ger district residents wanted streetlights and revamped urban planning, followed by more security cameras. The investment priorities from the LDF e-vote process show that residents want improvements that will produce safer and more livable environments. The LDF application will keep them informed of the government’s decisions on these investments, provide updates on project implementation, and, hopefully, demonstrate just how meaningful their participation has been.

Bakhytgul Titov is a senior project officer and Khaliungoo Ganbat is a project manager for The Asia Foundation’s Urban Governance Program in Mongolia. Mark Koenig is the Foundation’s Mongolia country representative. They can be reached at bakhytgul.titov@asiafoundation.org, khaliungoo.ganbat@asiafoundation.org, and mark.koening@asiafoundation.org, respectively. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, not those of The Asia Foundation.

Retail fuel price drops again www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Rosneft, major petroleum supplier to Mongolia, has been reducing its border prices for the past three months, reports Ts.Erdenebayar, Head of the Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority of Mongolia (MRPAM) yesterday, May 26.

Constitutional court to conclude law on election on June 3 www.zgm.mn

The Constitutional Court of Mongolia will make a final decision on whether certain provisions of the Law on Parliamentary Elections violate the Constitution at its plenary session on June 3, 2020, according to the Constitutional Court’s Media and Public Relations Office. In line with the election law, Article 6.1 stipulates that a party registered with the Supreme Court prior to the announcement of an election eligible to participate in the parliamentary election and Article 28.3.1 of the same law provides that parties and coalitions must register with the Supreme Court before the deadline for expressing their participation in the election which means conflicting regulations are enshrined in this law. In this regard, the Constitutional court considered whether these provisions violated the Constitution and decided to suspend them in violation of the relevant provisions of the Constitution on April 22. Since the Parliament considered this conclusion unacceptable, the court is going to finalize the dispute in its plenary session. The Constitutional Court of Mongolia has also decided to postpone the May 27, 2020 mid-session at the request of the Cabinet’s proxy representative. The meeting was scheduled to negotiate whether some provisions of the law on procurement of goods, works and services with state and local funds offenses against the constitution.

Rio Tinto cracks scandium extraction from waste www.mining.com

Rio Tinto has developed a way to extract high-purity scandium oxide from waste at its titanium dioxide production facilities in Quebec.

The company has been using the new process, developed by researchers at the company’s Rio Tinto Fer et Titane (RTFT) Research & Development Centre, to produce scandium oxide that meets market specifications since the second half of 2019 as part of a pilot project.

The new process extracts the critical mineral from byproducts generated at its RTFT metallurgical operation in Sorel-Tracy, Que., a facility that produces titanium dioxide from ilmenite mined at the Lac Tio open pit mine near Havre-Saint-Pierre.

Rio Tinto says the process, which is now being tested at a larger scale in a pilot plant, has the potential to enhance the scandium oxide market by delivering a secure supply source from an established operation, creating value from what was previously waste.

“This breakthrough on scandium is a great example of how we are looking at our operations across the world with fresh eyes to see how we can extract value from byproduct streams,” said Rio Tinto chief executive Jean-Sébastien Jacques in a release.

“Finding a way to extract a new product not only delivers more value from our orebodies, it helps to reduce waste. It’s a key part of operating in a more responsible way and providing the essential materials our world needs for a sustainable future.”

Scandium is a rare earth element that is used to improve the performance of solid oxide fuel cells and to produce high-performance aluminum alloys used for aerospace, sporting goods and other applications.

Rio Tinto says its process features low production costs and requires minimal capital investment; there are no direct mining costs and the scandium oxide is recovered directly from byproducts from the existing metallurgical plant.

”This exciting breakthrough in processing technology leverages our existing mining operation to provide what can be a scalable, high-quality and low-cost source of scandium oxide to markets and manufacturers,” Jacques said.

The company, which reports strong interest in the market for its product, is now assessing the potential to progress to industrial scale scandium oxide production.

The company is also trialling the production of small quantities of high-performance aluminium-scandium master alloy using the scandium oxide produced by RTFT with its aluminium business, also based in Quebec.

In January 2020, Canada and the United States finalized a Joint Action Plan on Critical Minerals Collaboration in order to secure supply chains for critical minerals – such as scandium.

Scandium is found in most rare earth deposits and in bauxite residues, commonly known as red mud.

However, to date it has been extracted from ores in only a few mines worldwide, mostly in Asia (China, Japan, Kazakhstan, the Philippines) and Russia.

(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)

U.S. business to Trump: Go slowly on Hong Kong response www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Business groups are urging U.S. President Donald Trump to go slowly in responding to Bejing’s planned imposition of new national security laws on Hong Kong, warning revoking the city’s special U.S. privileges will hurt the territory and its people.

That cleared the way for White House steps ranging from imposing sanctions on some senior Chinese officials to fully ending the 22-year U.S. practice of treating Hong Kong separately from China on trade, visas, investments and export controls.

Hong Kong’s special status has helped keep the former British colony of 7.5 million - which hosts operations of 1,300 U.S. companies and some 85,000 American residents - one of the world’s premier financial hubs since reverting to Chinese rule in 1997.

Details of the new Chinese legislation, which could see mainland security agencies to set up operations in Hong Kong, are being deliberted this week by China’s parliament.

“The text of the law in China has not yet been released. Words matter,” said Craig Allen, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council. The group would like to see all sides “de-escalate and maintain the ‘one-country two systems’ model for Hong Kong, which has served everyone so well for so many years,” he said.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday stressed here jeopardizing Hong Kong's special status would be a "serious mistake."

Pompeo’s declaration leaves room to move slowly, and acting quickly could inflict pain on Hong Kong and waste U.S. leverage over Beijing, said Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser and China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The U.S. declaration has “opened the door to massive changes but they have not walked through it yet,” Kennedy said. “It may rattle markets and have executive suites examining Plan Bs and Plan Cs but not necessarily immediately moving.”

Pressure in the U.S.-China relationship is mounting over issues including trade, technology restrictions and the coronavirus pandemic. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives backed legislation calling on Trump to impose sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for oppression of China’s Uighur Muslim minority.

DRIP BY DRIP
Some international financial firms have halted Hong Kong expansion plans and shifted staff to other Asian centers after protests in the city last year. A major change in Hong Kong’s legal status could accelerate that trend, risk managers and consultants say.

“I do think that the drip-by-drip process of companies leaving had already begun. The promulgation of a national security law really throws fuel on that fire,” said Todd Mariano, director of Eurasia Group’s U.S. practice in Washington.

Dane Chamorro, a partner in Control Risk Group’s Asia Pacific practice, said a larger exodus would depend on whether the security law preserves Hong Kong’s business law framework and the free movement of capital.

“You will have people concerned about it for sure, but they’re not going to leave as long as those two things are there,” Chamorro said, adding many international companies operate in countries with onerous security regimes.

What’s more important is preserving the sanctity of contracts, consistent labor rules and predictable regulation, Chamorro said.

Peter Humphrey, a former corporate fraud investigator who was imprisoned by China for nearly two years, said few companies are prepared for a “sudden event” where Chinese security forces seize control.

“Hong Kong is now under much greater threat of intervention than it has been before, that’s how I see it,” said Humphrey, now an external research associate with Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

Foreign companies in Hong Kong, especially those dealing with confidential information, need plans “to switch off their operations instantly”, he said.

Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Heather Timmons and Lincoln Feast.

Twitter tags Trump tweet with fact-checking warning www.bbc.com

A post by US President Donald Trump has been given a fact-check label by Twitter for the first time.

President Trump tweeted: "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent."

Twitter put a warning label under the post and a subsequent tweet under its new policy on misleading information.

Mr Trump responded by tweeting again, saying the social media giant "is completely stifling free speech".

Twitter's notification displays a blue exclamation mark underneath the tweets, suggesting readers "get the facts about mail-in ballots".

Twitter's link directs users to a page on which Mr Trump's claims about mail-in ballots are described as "unsubstantiated". The social media company cites reporting on the issue by CNN, the Washington Post and others.

This is followed by a "what you need to know" section where Twitter corrects what it says are false claims by the US president.

The social media company had pledged to increase the warning labels under false or misleading information on its site - but it has been slow to take steps against the US president.

Twitter updated its policies on warning labels early this month.

What is President Trump's response?
In his new tweets, Mr Trump accused Twitter of interfering in the US presidential election scheduled for 3 November 2020.

He said that the social media company was "completely stifling free speech, and I, as president, will not allow it to happen".

Mr Trump's presidential campaign manager Brad Parscale also criticised Twitter.

"Partnering with biased fake news 'fact checkers' is a smoke screen to lend Twitter's obvious political tactics false credibility. There are many reasons we pulled all our advertising from Twitter months ago, and clear political bias is one of them," Mr Parscale tweeted.

President Trump has used Twitter as a platform to pick fights with other politicians and celebrities. Now he may be in for a fight with the platform itself.

Following the firm's decision to label his tweets as misleading, he claimed on Twitter that the company was stifling free speech and that he wouldn't allow it. But Twitter as a private company gets to set its own rules for what happens on its platform.

The trouble for many was that up until Tuesday the firm didn't seem to be enforcing its rules when it came to the US president or other global leaders.

This is not the first time President Trump has made claims on Twitter that some say would have gotten less powerful people blocked from the site.

But Mr Trump's bombastic comments are part of what draws some of his more than 80 million followers to the site in the first place. The company doesn't want to lose them.

It sees the new labelling system as a way to balance both the desire to allow Twitter users including the president to say what they like, while also giving readers protection against misleading claims. The strategy mostly worked with tweets about Covid-19.

But with the US election in November, Twitter should expect a lot more posts with potentially misleading information. Meaning this is likely only the first test for its new enforcement plans.

What are mail-in ballots?
They are voting bulletins that are distributed and returned by post.

In a recent opinion survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 66% of Americans said they would not be comfortable going to a polling place to cast their ballot during the current coronavirus outbreak.

Such concerns have increased pressure on states to expand the availability of mail-in ballots for all voters in order to minimise the risk of viral exposure from in-person voting.

While every state provides some form of remote voting, the requirements to qualify vary greatly.

Five states in the western US, including Washington, Oregon and Colorado, conduct their elections entirely via mail-in ballot.

Others, like California, provide a postal ballot to anyone who requests it.

On the other end of the spectrum, 17 states require voters to provide a valid reason why they are unable to vote in-person in order to qualify for an absentee ballot.

Twitter refuses to remove 'horrifying lies'
The move comes on the heels of Twitter's decision not to remove comment President Trump made about the death of Lori Klausutis in 2001.

The president has tweeted several messages promoting a conspiracy theory that Ms Klausutis was murdered by MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.

Her widower Timothy Klausutis asked Twitter to remove the post, saying it included "horrifying lies".

The company declined to take down those tweets but told Mr Klausutis it was "deeply sorry" about the pain caused by the president's statements.

The Country with the Best Covid-19 Response? Mongolia www.kottke.org

Several countries have had solid responses to the Covid-19 pandemic: Taiwan, South Korea, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. But Indi Samarajiva thinks we should be paying much more attention to Mongolia, a country of 3.17 million people where no one has died and no locally transmitted cases have been reported. Let’s have that again: 3.17 million people, 0 local cases, 0 deaths. How did they do it? They saw what was happening in Wuhan, coordinated with the WHO, and acted swiftly & decisively in January.

Imagine that you could go back in time to January 23rd with the horse race results and, I dunno, the new iPhone. People believe you. China has just shut down Hubei Province, the largest cordon sanitaire in human history. What would you scream to your leaders? What would you tell them to do?

You’d tell them that this was serious and that it’s coming for sure. You’d tell them to restrict the borders now, to socially distance now, and to get medical supplies ready, also now. You’d tell them to react right now, in January itself. That’s 20/20 hindsight.

That’s exactly what Mongolia did, and they don’t have a time machine. They just saw what was happening in Hubei, they coordinated with China and the WHO, and they got their shit together fast. That’s their secret, not the elevation. They just weren’t dumb.

When you go to World In Data’s Coronavirus Data Explorer and click on “Mongolia” to add their data to the graph, nothing happens because they have zero reported cases and zero deaths. They looked at the paradox of preparation — the idea that “when the best way to save lives is to prevent a disease rather than treat it, success often looks like an overreaction” — and said “sign us up for the overreacting!”

Throughout February, Mongolia was furiously getting ready - procuring face masks, test kits, and PPE; examining hospitals, food markets, and cleaning up the city. Still no reported cases. Still no let-up in readiness. No one was like “it’s not real!” or “burn the 5G towers!”

The country also suspended their New Year celebrations, which are a big deal in Asia. They deployed hundreds of people and restricted intercity travel to make sure, though the public seemed to broadly support the move.

Again — and I’ll keep saying this until March — there were still NO CASES. If you want to know how Mongolia ended up with no local cases, it’s because they reacted when there were no local cases. And they kept acting.

For example, when they heard of a case across the border (ie, not in Mongolia) South Gobi declared an emergency and put everyone in masks. The center also shut down coal exports — a huge economic hit, which they took proactively.

As you can see, at every turn they’re reacting like other countries only did when it was too late. This looked like an over-reaction, but in fact, Mongolia was always on time.

I have to tell you true: I got really upset reading this. Like crying and furious. The United States could have done this. Italy could have done this. Brazil could have done this. Sweden could have done this. England could have done this. Spain could have done this. Mongolia listened to the experts, acted quickly, and kept their people safe. Much of the rest of the world, especially the western world — the so-called first-world countries — failed to act quickly enough and hundreds of thousands of people have needlessly died and countless others have been left with chronic health issues, grief, and economic chaos.

Deputy Representative of UNICEF Mongolia observed a TV lesson recording today www.unicef.org

Dr. Speciose Hakizimana, Deputy Representative of UNICEF Mongolia, observed a TV lesson recording today. “I saw how much enthusiasm and huge preparatory work goes behind one lesson. While teachers are happy to support the efforts of education continuation during COVID 19, they also learn new methodologies. Challenges of teaching on TV without interaction with children are creatively handled in different ways/new methods such as showing illustrations and getting advice from each other e.g. from a retired teacher” said Dr. Hakizimana.