Sharenthood: Why We Should Think before We Talk about Our Kids Online

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Leah Plunkett: “Our children’s first digital footprints are made before they can walk—even before they are born—as parents use fertility apps to aid conception, post ultrasound images, and share their baby’s hospital mug shot. Then, in rapid succession come terabytes of baby pictures stored in the cloud, digital baby monitors with built-in artificial intelligence, and real-time updates from daycare. When school starts, there are cafeteria cards that catalog food purchases, bus passes that track when kids are on and off the bus, electronic health records in the nurse’s office, and a school surveillance system that has eyes everywhere. Unwittingly, parents, teachers, and other trusted adults are compiling digital dossiers for children that could be available to everyone—friends, employers, law enforcement—forever. In this incisive book, Leah Plunkett examines the implications of “sharenthood”—adults’ excessive digital sharing of children’s data. She outlines the mistakes adults make with kids’ private information, the risks that result, and the legal system that enables “sharenting.”

Plunkett describes various modes of sharenting—including “commercial sharenting,” efforts by parents to use their families’ private experiences to make money—and unpacks the faulty assumptions made by our legal system about children, parents, and privacy. She proposes a “thought compass” to guide adults in their decision making about children’s digital data: play, forget, connect, and respect. Enshrining every false step and bad choice, Plunkett argues, can rob children of their chance to explore and learn lessons. The Internet needs to forget. We need to remember….(More)”.

Computational Communication Science

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Introduction to Special Issue of the International Journal of Communication:”Over the past two decades, processes of digitalization and mediatization have shaped the communication landscape and have had a strong impact on various facets of communication. The digitalization of communication results in completely new forms of digital traces that make communication processes observable in new and unprecedented ways. Although many scholars in the social sciences acknowledge the chances and requirements of the digital revolution in communication, they are also facing fundamental challenges in implementing successful research programs, strategies, and designs that are based on computational methods and “big data.” This Special Section aims at bringing together seminal perspectives on challenges and chances of computational communication science (CCS). In this introduction, we highlight the impulses provided by the research presented in the Special Section, discuss the most pressing challenges in the context of CCS, and sketch a potential roadmap for future research in this field….(More)”.

Raw data won’t solve our problems — asking the right questions will

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Stefaan G. Verhulst in apolitical: “If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the questions, and only five minutes finding the answers,” is a famous aphorism attributed to Albert Einstein.

Behind this quote is an important insight about human nature: Too often, we leap to answers without first pausing to examine our questions. We tout solutions without considering whether we are addressing real or relevant challenges or priorities. We advocate fixes for problems, or for aspects of society, that may not be broken at all.

This misordering of priorities is especially acute — and represents a missed opportunity — in our era of big data. Today’s data has enormous potential to solve important public challenges.

However, policymakers often fail to invest in defining the questions that matter, focusing mainly on the supply side of the data equation (“What data do we have or must have access to?”) rather than the demand side (“What is the core question and what data do we really need to answer it?” or “What data can or should we actually use to solve those problems that matter?”).

As such, data initiatives often provide marginal insights while at the same time generating unnecessary privacy risks by accessing and exploring data that may not in fact be needed at all in order to address the root of our most important societal problems.

A new science of questions

So what are the truly vexing questions that deserve attention and investment today? Toward what end should we strategically seek to leverage data and AI?

The truth is that policymakers and other stakeholders currently don’t have a good way of defining questions or identifying priorities, nor a clear framework to help us leverage the potential of data and data science toward the public good.

This is a situation we seek to remedy at The GovLab, an action research center based at New York University.

Our most recent project, the 100 Questions Initiative, seeks to begin developing a new science and practice of questions — one that identifies the most urgent questions in a participatory manner. Launched last month, the goal of this project is to develop a process that takes advantage of distributed and diverse expertise on a range of given topics or domains so as to identify and prioritize those questions that are high impact, novel and feasible.

Because we live in an age of data and much of our work focuses on the promises and perils of data, we seek to identify the 100 most pressing problems confronting the world that could be addressed by greater use of existing, often inaccessible, datasets through data collaboratives – new forms of cross-disciplinary collaboration beyond public-private partnerships focused on leveraging data for good….(More)”.

Misinformation Has Created a New World Disorder

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Claire Wardle at Scientific American: “…Online misinformation has been around since the mid-1990s. But in 2016 several events made it broadly clear that darker forces had emerged: automation, microtargeting and coordination were fueling information campaigns designed to manipulate public opinion at scale. Journalists in the Philippines started raising flags as Rodrigo Duterte rose to power, buoyed by intensive Facebook activity. This was followed by unexpected results in the Brexit referendum in June and then the U.S. presidential election in November—all of which sparked researchers to systematically investigate the ways in which information was being used as a weapon.

During the past three years the discussion around the causes of our polluted information ecosystem has focused almost entirely on actions taken (or not taken) by the technology companies. But this fixation is too simplistic. A complex web of societal shifts is making people more susceptible to misinformation and conspiracy. Trust in institutions is falling because of political and economic upheaval, most notably through ever widening income inequality. The effects of climate change are becoming more pronounced. Global migration trends spark concern that communities will change irrevocably. The rise of automation makes people fear for their jobs and their privacy.

Bad actors who want to deepen existing tensions understand these societal trends, designing content that they hope will so anger or excite targeted users that the audience will become the messenger. The goal is that users will use their own social capital to reinforce and give credibility to that original message.

Most of this content is designed not to persuade people in any particular direction but to cause confusion, to overwhelm and to undermine trust in democratic institutions from the electoral system to journalism. And although much is being made about preparing the U.S. electorate for the 2020 election, misleading and conspiratorial content did not begin with the 2016 presidential race, and it will not end after this one. As tools designed to manipulate and amplify content become cheaper and more accessible, it will be even easier to weaponize users as unwitting agents of disinformation….(More)”.

Credit: Jen Christiansen; Source: Information Disorder: Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Research and Policymaking, by Claire Wardle and Hossein Derakhshan. Council of Europe, October 2017

Discretion and the Quest for Controlled Freedom

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Tony Evans and Peter Hupe: “Actors in public situations are in some ways subject to control while also exercising freedom. Discretion in contemporary societies is increasingly characterized by cross-cutting systems of control as well as by conflicting conceptions of knowledge and expertise. There is also the paradox of the autonomous individual empowered by social media while simultaneously being subject to its algorithms and surveillance. Narrow disciplinary conceptions of discretion—whether they come from law, economics, sociology or politics—are of limited value in understanding the contemporary dynamics of discretion. This chapter describes these phenomena and also seeks to capture the operation of discretion in different settings while examining its role and evaluating its use. It is argued that we need to recognize developing debates within disciplines, cross-fertilization between them and innovative developments at the margins of those disciplines. That enables the conceptualization of the natures, operations and evaluations of discretion as a context-sensitive and dynamic idea….(More)”.

Smart Governance for Cities: Perspectives and Experiences

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Nuno Vasco Moreira Lopes: “This book provides theoretical perspectives and practical experiences on smart governance for smart cities. It presents a balanced linkage between research, policies and practices on this area. The authors discuss the sustainability challenges raised by rapid urbanization, challenges with smart governance models in various countries, and a new governance paradigm seen as a capable approach able to overcome social, economic and environmental sustainability problems. The authors include case studies on transformation, adaption and transfers; and country, regional, municipal contextualization. Also included are best practices on monitoring and evaluating smart governance and impact assessment. The book features contributions from researchers, academics, and practitioners in the field. 

  • Analyzes smart governance for cities from a variety of perspectives and a variety of sectors – both in theory and in practice
  • Features information on the linkage between United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and smart governance
  • Covers the connection between research, policies and practice in smart governance for smart cities…(More)”.

The Internet Freedom League: How to Push Back Against the Authoritarian Assault on the Web

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Essay by Richard A. Clarke And Rob Knake in Foreign Affairs: “The early days of the Internet inspired a lofty dream: authoritarian states, faced with the prospect of either connecting to a new system of global communication or being left out of it, would choose to connect. According to this line of utopian thinking, once those countries connected, the flow of new information and ideas from the outside world would inexorably pull them toward economic openness and political liberalization. In reality, something quite different has happened. Instead of spreading democratic values and liberal ideals, the Internet has become the backbone of authoritarian surveillance states all over the world. Regimes in China, Russia, and elsewhere have used the Internet’s infrastructure to build their own national networks. At the same time, they have installed technical and legal barriers to prevent their citizens from reaching the wider Internet and to limit Western companies from entering their digital markets. 

But despite handwringing in Washington and Brussels about authoritarian schemes to split the Internet, the last thing Beijing and Moscow want is to find themselves relegated to their own networks and cut off from the global Internet. After all, they need access to the Internet to steal intellectual property, spread propaganda, interfere with elections in other countries, and threaten critical infrastructure in rival countries. China and Russia would ideally like to re-create the Internet in their own images and force the world to play by their repressive rules. But they haven’t been able to do that—so instead they have ramped up their efforts to tightly control outside access to their markets, limit their citizens’ ability to reach the wider Internet, and exploit the vulnerability that comes with the digital freedom and openness enjoyed in the West.

The United States and its allies and partners should stop worrying about the risk of authoritarians splitting the Internet. Instead, they should split it themselves, by creating a digital bloc within which data, services, and products can flow freely…(More)”.

Sharing Private Data for Public Good

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Stefaan G. Verhulst at Project Syndicate: “After Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, the direct-mail marketing company Valassis shared its database with emergency agencies and volunteers to help improve aid delivery. In Santiago, Chile, analysts from Universidad del Desarrollo, ISI Foundation, UNICEF, and the GovLab collaborated with Telefónica, the city’s largest mobile operator, to study gender-based mobility patterns in order to design a more equitable transportation policy. And as part of the Yale University Open Data Access project, health-care companies Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, and SI-BONE give researchers access to previously walled-off data from 333 clinical trials, opening the door to possible new innovations in medicine.

These are just three examples of “data collaboratives,” an emerging form of partnership in which participants exchange data for the public good. Such tie-ups typically involve public bodies using data from corporations and other private-sector entities to benefit society. But data collaboratives can help companies, too – pharmaceutical firms share data on biomarkers to accelerate their own drug-research efforts, for example. Data-sharing initiatives also have huge potential to improve artificial intelligence (AI). But they must be designed responsibly and take data-privacy concerns into account.

Understanding the societal and business case for data collaboratives, as well as the forms they can take, is critical to gaining a deeper appreciation the potential and limitations of such ventures. The GovLab has identified over 150 data collaboratives spanning continents and sectors; they include companies such as Air France, Zillow, and Facebook. Our research suggests that such partnerships can create value in three main ways….(More)”.

Exploring the Smart City Indexes and the Role of Macro Factors for Measuring Cities Smartness

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

María Verónica Alderete in Social Indicators Research: “The main objective of this paper is to discuss the key factors involved in the definition of smart city indexes. Although recent literature has explored the smart city subject, it is of concern if macro ICT factors should also be considered for assessing the technological innovation of a city. To achieve this goal, firstly a literature review of smart city is provided. An analysis of the smart city concept together with a theoretical framework based on the knowledge society and the Quintuple Helix innovation model are included. Secondly, the study analyzes some smart city cases in developed and developing countries. Thirdly, it describes, criticizes and compares some well-known smart city indexes. Lastly, the empirical literature is explored to detect if there are studies proposing changes in smart city indexes or methodologies to consider the macro level variables. It results that cities at the top of the indexes rankings are from developed countries. On the other side, most cities at the bottom of the ranking are from developing or not developed countries. As a result, it is addressed that the ICT development of Smart Cities depends both on the cities’ characteristics and features, and on macro-technological factors. Secondly, there is a scarce number of papers in the subject including macro or country factors, and most of them are revisions of the literature or case studies. There is a lack of studies discussing the indexes’ methodologies. This paper provides some guidelines to build one….(More)”.

Governance sinkholes

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog post by Geoff Mulgan: “Governance sinkholes appear when shifts in technology, society and the economy throw up the need for new arrangements. Each industrial revolution has created many governance sinkholes – and prompted furious innovation to fill them. The fourth industrial revolution will be no different. But most governments are too distracted to think about what to do to fill these holes, let alone to act. This blog sets out my diagnosis – and where I think the most work is needed to design new institutions….

It’s not too hard to get a map of the fissures and gaps – and to see where governance is needed but is missing. There are all too many of these now.

Here are a few examples. One is long-term care, currently missing adequate financing, regulation, information and navigation tools, despite its huge and growing significance. The obvious contrast is with acute healthcare, which, for all its problems, is rich in institutions and governance.

A second example is lifelong learning and training. Again, there is a striking absence of effective institutions to provide funding, navigation, policy and problem solving, and again, the contrast with the institution-rich fields of primary, secondary and tertiary education is striking. The position on welfare is not so different, as is the absence of institutions fit for purpose in supporting people in precarious work.

I’m particularly interested in another kind of sinkhole: the absence of the right institutions to handle data and knowledge – at global, national and local levels – now that these dominate the economy, and much of daily life. In field after field, there are huge potential benefits to linking data sets and connecting artificial and human intelligence to spot patterns or prevent problems. But we lack any institutions with either the skills or the authority to do this well, and in particular to think through the trade-offs between the potential benefits and the potential risks….(More)”.