With Thanksgiving next week, this newsletter is packed with excellent reading and watching material to tide you over through the off-week ahead: a case against research that legitimizes policing, a tour of new research software, two big policy reports on regulating tech and addressing information disorder, pieces on addressing Covid disinformation and learning from our public health failures, and much more ahead:
The November-December issue of ACM’s Interactions magazine explores the concept of (un)making democracy. In the issue, Rachel Kuo and coauthor Mon Mohapatra argue for ending research that feeds systems of police violence, pointing out that
“Despite claiming to meet the anti-carceral demands of the moment, these research ventures legitimize law enforcement bureaucracy as capable of solving police violence, while facilitating police presence within radical milieus of abolitionist dissent.”
“PIEGraph captures more than URLS. It captures hashtags, the full text of the tweet, as well as a username, so there’s more data to analyze, and it covers both mobile and laptop content through API access.“ Deen Freelon presented his new software for user-eye view research that collects data viewable from mobile and desktop interfaces directly from APIs at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center.
New policy reports
This week brought the publication of two new policy-focused reports: The Center for American Progress’s “How to Regulate Tech,” and Aspen Digital’s Commission on Information Disorder report (PDF). The CAP report offers an ambitious framework for how to understand types of digital services, categorize common harms, and explores new regulatory possibilities for addressing these harms. The Aspen commission focuses somewhat more narrowly on obstacles to trust and healthy public information systems.
Both reports offer meaningful contributions in making sense of complex topics and proposing potential policy response, summarizing wide bodies of research that include work by our own Deen Freelon, Alice Marwick, Rebecca Lewis, and William Partin.
Navigating Covid information
“You have a right to speech, but not a right to reach. Social media platforms have a responsibility to the public health of the nation.” CITAP affiliate Kolina Koltai gave expert witness testimony to the US House Select Subcommittee on vaccine misinformation online and the monetization of COVID-19 misinformation.
“To understand how we fell so far short... it’s important to review the outbreak’s early days to see why the United States — once considered the global leader in public health — is floundering in mistrust, paranoia and exhaustion.” Zeynep Tufekci reflects on what rebuilding American public health infrastructure might look like.
…and more
“By making public so much of daily life that was formerly private, the internet has made involuntary public figures out of many people who have suffered notable tragedies through no fault or risky behavior of their own.“ CITAP Affiliate Enrique Armijo discusses Alex Jones, Sandy Hook, and how technology complicates defamation law.
“Trying to micromanage who's going to get platformed or de-platformed, and where's that line is super messy, because I'm not even sure it's the tech companies' place to draw those lines.” Zeynep Tufekci took part in the Sydney Dialogue on “A new compact between technology and government,” and you can watch the full panel recording.
“No matter the impetus, the U.S. reform agenda looks similar to China’s. So does the convergence of U.S. and Chinese tech policy mean this reform plan is the right one, or should the U.S. be wary of following China’s path?” CITAP affiliate Matt Perault considers what we can learn from China’s techlash.
Coming soon
With the Asian American Feminist Collective and Black Women Radicals, Rachel Kuo will be co-editing an anthology on Black and Asian feminist solidarities, publishing with Haymarket Books next year.
Rest of Web
💙 Shannon McGregor shared strategies from UNC’s Mental Health Summit that faculty can use to increase responsiveness in the classroom:
Flexibility: deadlines, trimming syllabi, changing assignments and grading practices.
Accessibility: creating time to talk, hybrid options, recorded matierials.
Promoting wellness: using breathing and relaxation in classes, bringing in experts, more social interaction time.
Providing referrals and connecting students to services.
Reaching out to vulnerable students.
Showing compassion: saying they care, listening sessions, expressing concern, labeling the stress.
🎧 On the Lawfare Podcast, evelyn douek and Quinta Jurecic discuss the evolving role of the Facebook Oversight Board.
...and finally, a bonus for those of you that read this far: