Stefaan Verhulst
Blog by Mayara Soares Faria, Ricardo Poppi and Carla de Paiva Bezerra: “We have heard it before and will likely hear it again: democracy is facing serious challenges. Around the world, levels of trust in governments and institutions are low. To overcome this, one of the most telling findings, highlighted in the latest OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust, is that people trust governments more when they feel their voices are genuinely heard.
Participation, therefore, has become a key ingredient for strengthening democracy and rebuilding trust. However, participation on its own does not guarantee trust. On the contrary, poorly designed processes can backfire, creating frustration and enhancing mistrust. Meaningful participation requires careful design, transparency, and a real link between what citizens ask for and what governments do.
It was to address this challenge that Brazil placed social participation at the heart of the government’s agenda. Within the General Secretariat of the Presidency, the National Secretariat of Social Participation was entrusted with a bold mission: to make policymaking more inclusive, reflective of the country’s regional and social diversity, and more effective by grounding it in the reality of each territory. To achieve this, a federal strategy of social participation was designed to foster dialogue between civil society and government, reduce barriers to participation and empower citizens. This required a concerted effort to rebuild the participatory structures that had been dismantled in previous years..(More)”.
Article by Jacob Mchangama: “…The Trump administration has moved with startling speed from trumpeting free speech to seeking to criminalize it. At first glance, that might seem to vindicate the arguments in the historian Fara Dabhoiwala’s new book, What Is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea. Dabhoiwala believes that the modern obsession with free speech—particularly the American belief that almost any restriction on it threatens democracy—has blinded its defenders to how often that right is invoked cynically in pursuit of antidemocratic ends. In his view, the right to free speech has most often been wielded as “a weaponized mantra” by people motivated by “greed, technological change and political expediency” rather than as a principle invoked sincerely to restrain tyranny.
Although Dabhoiwala acknowledges that pre-Enlightenment peoples such as the Athenians valued forms of freedom of expression, his main story begins in the eighteenth century. In that era, he writes, the idea that freedom of speech was necessary for human flourishing went viral across Europe and the United States, despite the fact that the theorists who made the argument often did so “for personal gain, to silence others, to sow dissension or to subvert the truth.” A robust and civil-libertarian interpretation of it became entrenched in twentieth-century American culture and legal doctrine, but Dabhoiwala contends that modern First Amendment jurisprudence undermined the very democratic values it was supposed to safeguard. Rather than fulfilling its promise as an “antidote to misinformation and falsehood,” he writes, the American approach to free speech “often amplifies it.”…
Today’s crisis of free speech in America is not the legacy of John Stuart Mill or First Amendment fetishism. It has arisen because too many Americans have lost their faith in free-speech exceptionalism—at the very moment when the First Amendment remains the strongest constitutional barrier to Trump’s censorious agenda. Yet the First Amendment’s text alone cannot guarantee robust debate. Time and again, unpopular and persecuted groups—political, racial, and religious—have fought to strengthen its practical force. Americans must work again to secure that inheritance…(More)”.
Blog by EuroCities: “Digitalisation has made it easier than ever to share information. And just as easy, to spread falsehoods. Cities are now facing the consequences as disinformation undermines public trust.
Local governments are often the first to feel the impact of misinformation, from confusion over public health advice to growing scepticism toward official information online. But as the level of government closest to citizens, and the one they trust the most according to the 2024 OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions, cities are also in a strong position to respond. Across Europe, they are finding practical ways to strengthen transparency, improve communication, and help citizens navigate the digital world with confidence.
The trust crisis
False information spreads quickly through social media and online platforms. It fuels polarisation and confusion, and makes people question not only what is true, but who to trust. For local governments, this has a direct impact: if citizens lose confidence in their city’s information, services or institutions, democracy itself becomes weaker.
“Trust is fragile and being tested every day by the spread of misinformation,” said Sophie Woodville, Digital Programme Manager at Bordeaux Métropole. “We need to protect and strengthen that trust by rethinking how we deliver services, engage with citizens and build ecosystems that are transparent, inclusive and resilient.”
Cities’ proximity to citizens allows them to respond faster than national governments and to adapt messages to local realities and communities…
City representatives shared how misinformation takes shape at the local level.
In Ghent, false rumours during the Covid pandemic, from vaccine myths to confusion about lockdown rules , spread through neighbourhood networks and community groups. The city responded with clear, multilingual messages and direct outreach through schools, community influencers, and even printed flyers in eight languages.
“We chose not to attack the disinformation,” explained Mieke Hullebroeck, General Manager of the City of Ghent. “Instead, we built a communication strategy that was fair, transparent and clear, both internally to our staff and externally to our citizens. We made our messages as accessible as possible, using images and icons so that everyone could understand them.”
In Helsinki, misinformation has also taken new forms. “The amount of misinformation online multiplied during Covid, and we are still struggling with its effects,” said Jasmin Repo, Senior Advisor for Data Policy at the City of Helsinki. “Just recently, a deep fake video featuring a government official went viral. The quality of these fakes is improving so fast that it’s getting harder to know what is real. Combatting this requires not only digital skills, but critical thinking and understanding.”..(More)”.
Article by Robert Booth: “Experts have found weaknesses, some serious, in hundreds of tests used to check the safety and effectiveness of new artificial intelligence models being released into the world.
Computer scientists from the British government’s AI Security Institute, and experts at universities including Stanford, Berkeley and Oxford, examined more than 440 benchmarks that provide an important safety net.
They found flaws that “undermine the validity of the resulting claims”, that “almost all … have weaknesses in at least one area”, and resulting scores might be “irrelevant or even misleading”.
Many of the benchmarks are used to evaluate the latest AI models released by the big technology companies, said the study’s lead author, Andrew Bean, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute…(More)”
Article by Michael Stebbins & Eric Perakslis: “By shifting funding from small underpowered randomized control trials to large field experiments in which many different treatments are tested synchronously in a large population using the same objective measure of success, so-called megastudies can start to drive people toward healthier lifestyles. Megastudies will allow us to more quickly determine what works, in whom, and when for health-related behavioral interventions, saving tremendous dollars over traditional randomized controlled trial (RCT) approaches because of the scalability. But doing so requires the government to back the establishment of a research platform that sits on top of a large, diverse cohort of people with deep demographic data.
According to the National Research Council, almost half of premature deaths (< 86 years of age) are caused by behavioral factors. Poor diet, high blood pressure, sedentary lifestyle, obesity, and tobacco use are the primary causes of early death for most of these people. Yet, despite studying these factors for decades, we know surprisingly little about what can be done to turn these unhealthy behaviors into healthier ones. This has not been due to a lack of effort. Thousands of randomized controlled trials intended to uncover messaging and incentives that can be used to steer people towards healthier behaviors have failed to yield impactful steps that can be broadly deployed to drive behavioral change across our diverse population. For sure, changing human behavior through such mechanisms is controversial, and difficult. Nonetheless studying how to bend behavior should be a national imperative if we are to extend healthspan and address the declining lifespan of Americans at scale….There is substantial risk when bringing together such deep personal data on a large population of people. While companies compile deep data all the time, it is unusual to do so for research purposes and will, for sure, raise some eyebrows, as has been the case for large studies like the aforementioned All of Us and the Million Veteran’s Program.
Patients fear misuse of their data, inaccurate recommendations, and biased algorithms—especially among historically marginalized populations. Patients must trust that their data is being used for good, not for marketing purposes and determining their insurance rates.
Icons © 2024 by Jae Deasigner is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Need for Data Interoperability
Many healthcare and community systems operate in data silos and data integration is a perennial challenge in healthcare. Patient-generated data from wearables, apps, or remote sensors often do not integrate with electronic health record data or demographic data gathered from elsewhere, limiting the precision and personalization of behavior-change interventions. This lack of interoperability undermines both provider engagement and user benefit..(More)”.
Report by Open Data Watch: “In early 2025, an abrupt withdrawal of development assistance—driven by pauses in foreign aid and wider donor retrenchment—triggered a systemic shock to global health data systems. These systems, already reliant on a concentrated set of bilateral and multilateral funders for surveys, civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS), health management information systems (HMIS), and disease surveillance, now face immediate interruptions and heightened medium-term risks to data continuity, quality, openness, and use.
This report synthesizes early disclosures from major agencies, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development / Development Assistance Committee (OECD/DAC), and a rapid assessment survey covering more than half of national statistical offices (NSOs). Evidence on philanthropic and domestic financing is incomplete, and survey nonresponse may introduce bias, but convergent signals show broad exposure. Three unknowns will shape the next 12–18 months: the duration of donor withdrawals, the degree of philanthropic bridging, and the extent of government backfilling to protect core functions…(More)”.
Report by Brookings: “Cities in the U.S. and globally face a severe, system-wide housing shortfall—exacerbated by siloed, proprietary, and fragile data practices that impede coordinated action. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) promise to increase the speed and effectiveness of data integration and decisionmaking for optimizing housing supply. But unlocking the value of these tools requires a common infrastructure of (i) shared computational assets (data, protocols, models) required to develop AI systems and (ii) institutional capabilities to deploy these systems to unlock housing supply. This memo develops a policy and implementation proposal for a “Home Genome Project” (Home GP): a cohort of cities building open standards, shared datasets and models, and an institutional playbook for operationalizing these assets using AI. Beginning with an initial pilot cohort of four to six cities, a Home GP-type initiative could help 50 partner cities identify and develop additional housing supply relative to business-as-usual projections by 2030. The open data infrastructure and AI tools developed through this approach could help cities better understand the on-the-ground impacts of policy decisions, while also providing a constructive way to track progress and stay accountable to longer-term housing supply goals…(More)”.
Book by Winnifred R. Louis, Gi K. Chonu, Kiara Minto, Susilo Wibisono: “Why do some societies evolve and adapt while others remain stagnant? What creates divisiveness and exclusion, and what leads to community cohesion and social progress? This book discusses the psychology of social system change and resistance to change, offering readers a deep exploration of the psychological dynamics that shape societal transformations. Readers explore psychological perspectives on intergroup relations and group processes, alongside interdisciplinary perspectives from environmental science, history, political science, and sociology, to question and challenge conventional thinking. This readable, entertaining book contains clear definitions, lucid explanations, and key learnings in each chapter that highlight the take-home points and implications, so that readers can apply these insights to their real-world challenges…(More)”.
Paper by Suyash Fulay, Sercan Demir, Galen Hines-Pierce, Hélène Landemore, Michiel Bakker: A large share of retail investors hold public equities through mutual funds, yet lack adequate control over these investments. Indeed, mutual funds concentrate voting power in the hands of a few asset managers. These managers vote on behalf of shareholders despite having limited insight into their individual preferences, leaving them exposed to growing political and regulatory pressures, particularly amid rising shareholder activism. Pass-through voting has been proposed as a way to empower retail investors and provide asset managers with clearer guidance, but it faces challenges such as low participation rates and the difficulty of capturing highly individualized shareholder preferences for each specific vote. Randomly selected assemblies of shareholders, or “investor assemblies,” have also been proposed as more representative proxies than asset managers. As a third alternative, we propose artificial intelligence (AI) enabled representatives trained on individual shareholder preferences to act as proxies and vote on their behalf. Over time, these models could not only predict how retail investors would vote at any given moment but also how they might vote if they had significantly more time, knowledge, and resources to evaluate each proposal, leading to better overall decision-making. We argue that shareholder democracy offers a compelling real-world test bed for AI-enabled representation, providing valuable insights into both the potential benefits and risks of this approach more generally…(More)”.
Report by Neil Kleiman, Eric Gordon and Mai-Ling Garcia: “AI is rapidly reshaping the public sector, but most efforts remain focused on optimizing existing processes rather than reimagining how institutions serve communities. If governments continue to pursue efficiency alone, they risk entrenching the very systems that residents already distrust. Based on two years of research—including more than 40 interviews, pilots in Boston, New York City, and San José, and a scan of national policy trends—we propose an alternative framework for public AI adoption: Adapt, Listen, and Trust (ALT).
Rather than reinforce the status quo, the ALT framework guides civic partners to build more responsive public institutions by (1) adapting to the amplified demand AI unleashes, (2) building shared civic infrastructure that enables genuine listening at scale, and (3) cultivating two-way accountability that deepens public trust. The report concludes by outlining concrete recommendations for governments, philanthropy, universities, and community organizations to align around the ALT approach…(More)”.