- The Data That Turned the World Upside Down (originally published on Motherboard)
- Psychologist Michal Kosinski developed a method to analyze people in minute detail based on their Facebook activity. Did a similar tool help propel Donald Trump to victory? Two reporters from Zurich-based Das Magazin went data-gathering.
- A 6 minute Intro to AI (originally published on Snips)
- AI made incredible progress this year. From the first autonomous Ubers, to the AlphaGo victories — we’ve watched AI move into the spotlight. So, as a gift to our community, we’ve decided to decode some buzzwords, examine some big stats, and surface the trends that you deserve to know about. Need some dinner party conversation ammo?
Data and Society (original list taken from Points.com)
- In Hacking the Attention Economy, danah boyd describes some of the tactics and strategies that people have taken to manipulate old and new media for fun, profit, and ideology.
- In What’s Propaganda Got To Do With It? Caroline Jack brings historical context to the use of the term “propaganda,” arguing that the resurgence of this label amid social anxieties over the new media landscape is reflective of deeper cultural and ideological divides.
- Did Media Literacy Backfire? by danah boyd examines how media literacy education efforts to encourage the public to be critical consumers of information may have contributed to widespread distrust in information intermediaries, complicating efforts to understand what is real and what is not.
- In Are There Limits to Online Free Speech, Alice Marwick explores how the tech industry’s obsession with “free speech” has been repurposed (and newly politicized) by networks whose actions are often seen as supporting of hate speech and harassment.
- Why America is Self-Segregating is danah boyd’s attempt to lay out some of the structural shifts that have taken place in the United States in the last twenty years that have magnified polarization and resulted in new types of de-diversification.
- In How do you deal with a problem like “fake news,” Robyn Caplan looks directly at the challenges that companies face when they seek to address the inaccurate and often problematic content that is spread widely on social media sites.
- Gilad Lotan’s Fake News is Not the Only Problem, which outlines how bias and propaganda are often more damaging than deliberately misleading information.
- Ethan Zuckerman’s Ben Franklin, the Post Office, and the Digital Public Sphere, which explores how information infrastructures have long been wielded to move many kinds of “content.”
Further Reading
- More information about the Draft Communications Data Bill can be found on Wikipedia
- MP’s win surveillance powers legal challenge article on BBC
- High court to rule on MPs’ claim that data retention act damages privacy Guardian article
- A Question of Trust – Report of the Investigatory Powers Review link
- Law Enforcement Disclosure Report 2015 by Vodafone
- Theresa May decided to ignore last week court judgement which deemed current surveillance practice unlawful #ExplainNoToTheresaMay
- Digital Citizenship and Surveillance Society
