Facebook artificial intelligence spots suicidal users

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Leo Kelion at BBC News: “Facebook has begun using artificial intelligence to identify members that may be at risk of killing themselves.

The social network has developed algorithms that spot warning signs in users’ posts and the comments their friends leave in response.

After confirmation by Facebook’s human review team, the company contacts those thought to be at risk of self-harm to suggest ways they can seek help.

A suicide helpline chief said the move was “not just helpful but critical”.

The tool is being tested only in the US at present.

It marks the first use of AI technology to review messages on the network since founder Mark Zuckerberg announced last month that he also hoped to use algorithms to identify posts by terrorists, among other concerning content.

Facebook also announced new ways to tackle suicidal behaviour on its Facebook Live broadcast tool and has partnered with several US mental health organisations to let vulnerable users contact them via its Messenger platform.

Pattern recognition

Facebook has offered advice to users thought to be at risk of suicide for years, but until now it had relied on other users to bring the matter to its attention by clicking on a post’s report button.

It has now developed pattern-recognition algorithms to recognise if someone is struggling, by training them with examples of the posts that have previously been flagged.

Talk of sadness and pain, for example, would be one signal.

Responses from friends with phrases such as “Are you OK?” or “I’m worried about you,” would be another.

Once a post has been identified, it is sent for rapid review to the network’s community operations team.

“We know that speed is critical when things are urgent,” Facebook product manager Vanessa Callison-Burch told the BBC.

The director of the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline praised the effort, but said he hoped Facebook would eventually do more than give advice, by also contacting those that could help….

The latest effort to help Facebook Live users follows the death of a 14-year-old-girl in Miami, who livestreamed her suicide on the platform in January.

However, the company said it had already begun work on its new tools before the tragedy.

The goal is to help at-risk users while they are broadcasting, rather than wait until their completed video has been reviewed some time later….(More)”.

Crowdsourcing Expertise

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Simons Foundation: “Ever wish there was a quick, easy way to connect your research to the public?

By hosting a Wikipedia ‘edit-a-thon’ at a science conference, you can instantly share your research knowledge with millions while improving the science content on the most heavily trafficked and broadly accessible resource in the world. In 2016, in partnership with the Wiki Education Foundation, we helped launched the Wikipedia Year of Science, an ambitious initiative designed to better connect the work of scientists and students to the public. Here, we share some of what we learned.

The Simons Foundation — through its Science Sandbox initiative, dedicated to public engagement — co-hosted a series of Wikipedia edit-a-thons throughout 2016 at almost every major science conference, in collaboration with the world’s leading scientific societies and associations.

At our edit-a-thons, we leveraged the collective brainpower of scientists, giving them basic training on Wikipedia guidelines and facilitating marathon editing sessions — powered by free pizza, coffee and sometimes beer — during which they made copious contributions within their respective areas of expertise.

These efforts, combined with the Wiki Education Foundation’s powerful classroom model, have had a clear impact. To date, we’ve reached over 150 universities including more than 6,000 students and scientists. As for output, 6,306 articles have been created or edited, garnering more than 304 million views; over 2,000 scientific images have been donated; and countless new scientist-editors have been minted, many of whom will likely continue to update Wikipedia content. The most common response we got from scientists and conference organizers about the edit-a-thons was: “Can we do that again next year?”

That’s where this guide comes in.

Through collaboration, input from Wikipedians and scientists, and more than a little trial and error, we arrived at a model that can help you organize your own edit-a-thons. This informal guide captures our main takeaways and lessons learned….Our hope is that edit-a-thons will become another integral part of science conferences, just like tweetups, communication workshops and other recent outreach initiatives. This would ensure that the content of the public’s most common gateway to science research will continually improve in quality and scope.

Download: “Crowdsourcing Expertise: A working guide for organizing Wikipedia edit-a-thons at science conferences”

Fighting Illegal Fishing With Big Data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Emily Matchar in Smithsonian: “In many ways, the ocean is the Wild West. The distances are vast, the law enforcement agents few and far between, and the legal jurisdiction often unclear. In this environment, illegal activity flourishes. Illegal fishing is so common that experts estimate as much as a third of fish sold in the U.S. was fished illegally. This illegal fishing decimates the ocean’s already dwindling fish populations and gives rise to modern slavery, where fishermen are tricked onto vessels and forced to work, sometimes for years.

A new use of data technology aims to help curb these abuses by shining a light on the high seas. The technology uses ships’ satellite signals to detect instances of transshipment, when two vessels meet at sea to exchange cargo. As transshipment is a major way illegally caught fish makes it into the legal supply chain, tracking it could potentially help stop the practice.

“[Transshipment] really allows people to do something out of sight,” says David Kroodsma, the research program director at Global Fishing Watch, an online data platform launched by Google in partnership with the nonprofits Oceana and SkyTruth. “It’s something that obscures supply chains. It’s basically being able to do things without any oversight. And that’s a problem when you’re using a shared resource like the oceans.”

Global Fishing Watch analyzed some 21 billion satellite signals broadcast by ships, which are required to carry transceivers for collision avoidance, from between 2012 and 2016. It then used an artificial intelligence system it created to identify which ships were refrigerated cargo vessels (known in the industry as “reefers”). They then verified this information with fishery registries and other sources, eventually identifying 794 reefers—90 percent of the world’s total number of such vessels. They tracked instances where a reefer and a fishing vessel were moving at similar speeds in close proximity, labeling these instances as “likely transshipments,” and also traced instances where reefers were traveling in a way that indicated a rendezvous with a fishing vessel, even if no fishing vessel was present—fishing vessels often turn off their satellite systems when they don’t want to be seen. All in all there were more than 90,000 likely or potential transshipments recorded.

Even if these encounters were in fact transshipments, they would not all have been for nefarious purposes. They may have taken place to refuel or load up on supplies. But looking at the patterns of where the potential transshipments happen is revealing. Very few are seen close to the coasts of the U.S., Canada and much of Europe, all places with tight fishery regulations. There are hotspots off the coast of Peru and Argentina, all over Africa, and off the coast of Russia. Some 40 percent of encounters happen in international waters, far enough off the coast that no country has jurisdiction.

The tracked reefers were flying flags from some 40 different countries. But that doesn’t necessarily tell us much about where they really come from. Nearly half of the reefers tracked were flying “flags of convenience,” meaning they’re registered in countries other than where the ship’s owners are from to take advantage of those countries’ lax regulations….(More)”

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/fighting-illegal-fishing-big-data-180962321/#7eCwGrGS5v5gWjFz.99
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The Datafied Society. Studying Culture through Data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

(Open Access) book edited by Mirko Tobias Schäfer & Karin van Es: “As more and more aspects of everyday life are turned into machine-readable data, researchers are provided with rich resources for researching society. The novel methods and innovative tools to work with this data not only require new knowledge and skills, but also raise issues concerning the practices of investigation and publication. This book critically reflects on the role of data in academia and society and challenges overly optimistic expectations considering data practices as means for understanding social reality. It introduces its readers to the practices and methods for data analysis and visualization and raises questions not only about the politics of data tools, but also about the ethics in collecting, sifting through data, and presenting data research. AUP S17 Catalogue text As machine-readable data comes to play an increasingly important role in everyday life, researchers find themselves with rich resources for studying society. The novel methods and tools needed to work with such data require not only new knowledge and skills, but also a new way of thinking about best research practices. This book critically reflects on the role and usefulness of big data, challenging overly optimistic expectations about what such information can reveal, introducing practices and methods for its analysis and visualization, and raising important political and ethical questions regarding its collection, handling, and presentation….(More)”.

Education startup helps refugees earn university degree

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Springwise: “Berlin-based Kiron works with refugee students to put together an online course of study, rigorous enough to provide entry into a partner university’s second year of study. Using Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), Kiron helps students master their new country’s language while studying basic prerequisites for a chosen university degree. Already working with more than 1,500 students in Germany, Kiron recently expanded into France.

With less than one percent of all refugees able to access higher education, MOOCs help get new students to the necessary level of knowledge for in-person university study. Kiron also provides off-line support including study buddy programs and career guidance. Once a participant completes the two-year online program, he or she has the opportunity to enroll for free (as a second year student) in one of Kiron’s partner university’s programs.

A number of projects are finding ways to use the talents of refugees to help them integrate into their country through knowledge-sharing and employment opportunities. Locals and refugees work together in this new Dutch ideas hub, and this French catering company hires refugee chefs….(More)”.

Open innovation in the public sector

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Sabrina Diaz Rato in OpenDemocracy: “For some years now, we have been witnessing the emergence of relational, cross-over, participative power. This is the territory that gives technopolitics its meaning and prominence, the basis on which a new vision of democracy – more open, more direct, more interactive – is being developed and embraced. It is a framework that overcomes the closed architecture on which the praxis of governance (closed, hierarchical, one-way) have been cemented in almost all areas. The series The ecosystem of open democracy explores the different aspects of this ongoing transformation….

How can innovation contribute to building an open democracy? The answer is summed up in these ten connectors of innovation.

  1. placing innovation and collective intelligence at the center of public management strategies,
  2. aligning all government areas with clearly-defined goals on associative platforms,
  3. shifting the frontiers of knowledge and action from the institutions to public deliberation on local challenges,
  4. establishing leadership roles, in a language that everyone can easily understand, to organize and plan the wealth of information coming out of citizens’ ideas and to engage those involved in the sustainability of the projects,
  5. mapping the ecosystem and establishing dynamic relations with internal and, particularly, external agents: the citizens,
  6. systematizing the accumulation of information and the creative processes, while communicating progress and giving feedback to the whole community,
  7. preparing society as a whole to experience a new form of governance of the common good,
  8. cooperating with universities, research centers and entrepreneurs in establishing reward mechanisms,
  9. aligning people, technologies, institutions and the narrative with the new urban habits, especially those related to environmental sustainability and public services,
  10. creating education and training programs in tune with the new skills of the 21st century,
  11. building incubation spaces for startups responding to local challenges,
  12. inviting venture capital to generate a satisfactory mix of open innovation, inclusive development policies and local productivity.

Two items in this list are probably the determining factors of any effective innovation process. The first has to do with the correct decision on the mechanisms through which we have pushed the boundaries outwards, so as to bring citizen ideas into the design and co-creation of solutions. This is not an easy task, because it requires a shared organizational mentality on previously non-existent patterns of cooperation, which must now be sustained through dialog and operational dynamics aimed at solving problems defined by external actors – not just any problem.

Another key aspect of the process, related to the breaking down of the institutional barriers that surround and condition action frameworks, is the revaluation of a central figure that we have not yet mentioned here: the policy makers. They are not exactly political leaders or public officials. They are not innovators either. They are the ones within Public Administration who possess highly valuable management skills and knowledge, but who are constantly colliding against the glittering institutional constellations that no longer work….(More)”

In Beta: Is policymaking stuck in the 19th century?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Global Partners Digital: “Today we’re launching a new series of podcasts – titled In beta – with the aim of critically examining the big questions facing human rights in the digital environment.

The series will be hosted by GPD’s executive director, Charles Bradley, who will interview a different guest – or guests – for each episode.

But before we go into details, a little more on the concept. We’ve created In beta because we felt that there weren’t enough forums for genuine debate and discussion within the digital rights community. We felt that we needed a space where we could host interesting conversations with interesting people in our field, outside of the conventions of traditional policy discourse; which can sometimes work to confine people in silos, and discourage more open, experimental thinking.

The series is called In beta because these conversations will be speculative, not definitive. The questions we examine won’t be easy – or even possible – to answer. They may sometimes be provocative. They may themselves raise new questions, and perhaps lay the groundwork for future work.

In the first episode, we talk to the c0-founder of GovLab, Stefaan Verhulst, asking – ‘Is policymaking stuck in the 19th century?’…(More)”

Chile’s ‘Uber of Recycling’ Is Sparking a Recycling Revolution

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst
Tomas Urbina at Motherboard: “In 2015, after finishing a soccer game in Chile’s capital, Santiago, engineering student Cristián Lara and his friends noticed an older man picking through a dumpster nearby. He was searching for anything that could be recycled, and loading it onto his bike.

“It looked like incredibly hard work,” Lara recalled. After talking to the man, it turns out he had been doing the same work for 10 years, and was still living in poverty.

The encounter gave Lara an idea. What if there was a way to connect the collector on the street directly to the massive waste streams that exist in Chile, and to the companies that pay decent money for recyclables?

“We knew we had to do something,” said 24-year-old Lara. That’s how a recycling app startup, called ReciclApp, was born. The app launched last August. Since then, the bearded young entrepreneur has been on a mission. Standing in their section of an open collaborative workspace on the fifth floor of the luminous new innovation centre at Santiago’s Catholic University, Lara let his glee shine through in his elevator pitch for the app.

“It’s the Uber of recycling,” he said.

It works like this: individuals, businesses, and institutions download the free app. Once they have cans, boxes or bottles to get rid of, they declare specific numbers in the app and choose a date and time period for pickup. From that data, the company creates and prints out routes for the collectors they work with. There are now an average of 200 collectors working with ReciclApp across Chile, and about 1,000 app users in the country.

For collectors, it’s an efficient route with guaranteed recyclables, and they keep all the money they make. Lara’s team cuts out the middleman transporters who would previously take the material to large recycling companies. ReciclApp even has designated storage centres where collectors can leave material before a truck from large recyclers shows up….

Lara estimates that there are about 100,000 people trying to earn money from recycling in Chile. Those that work with ReciclApp have more than doubled their recycling earnings on average from about $100 USD per month to $250 USD. But even that, Lara admitted, is a small gain when you consider Chile’s high cost of living….

ReciclApp intends to change that. “We’re going to start hiring waste collectors, so they’ll have a set wage, a schedule, and can earn extra income based on how much they collect and how many homes or businesses they visit,” said ReciclApp’s director of operations, 25-year-old Manuel Fonseca….

For Fuentes, 40, the biggest improvement is how she’s treated. “Families value us as workers now, not as the lady who asks for donations and picks through the garbage,” she said. “We spent too many years hidden in the shadows. I feel different now. I’m not embarrassed of my work the way I used to be.”….(More)”

Why We Make Free, Public Information More Accessible

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Gabi Fitz and Lisa Brooks in Philantopic: “One of the key roles the nonprofit sector plays in civil society is providing evidence about social problems and their solutions. Given recent changes to policies regarding the sharing of knowledge and evidence by federal agencies, that function is more critical than ever.

Nonprofits deliver more than direct services such as running food banks or providing shelter to people who are homeless. They also collect and share data, evidence, and lessons learned so as to help all of us understand complex and difficult problems.

Those efforts not only serve to illuminate and benchmark our most pressing social problems, they also inform the actions we take, whether at the individual, organizational, community, or policy level. Often, they provide the evidence in “evidence-based” decision making, not to mention the knowledge that social sector organizations and policy makers rely on when shaping their programs and services and individual citizens turn to inform their own engagement.

In January 2017, several U.S. government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture, were ordered by officials of the incoming Trump administration not to share anything that could be construed as controversial through official communication channels such as websites and social media channels. (See “Federal Agencies Told to Halt External Communications.”) Against that backdrop, the nonprofit sector’s interest in generating and sharing evidence has become more urgent than ever…..

Providing access to evidence and lessons learned is always important, but in light of recent events, we believe it’s more necessary than ever. That’s why we are asking for your help in providing — and preserving — access to this critical knowledge base.

Over the next few months, we will be updating and maintaining special collections of non-academic research on the following topics and need lead curators with issue expertise to lend us a hand. IssueLab special collections are an effort to contextualize important segments of the growing evidence base we curate, and are one of the ways we  help visitors to the platform learn about nonprofit organizations and resources that may be useful to their work and knowledge-gathering efforts.

Possible special collection topics to be updated or curated:

→ Access to reproductive services (new)
→ Next steps for ACA
→ Race and policing
→ Immigrant detention and deportation
→ Climate change and extractive mining (new)
→ Veterans affairs
→ Gun violence

If you are a researcher, knowledge broker, or service provider in any of these fields of practice, please consider volunteering as a lead curator. …(More)”

Democracy in Action

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Bea Schofield at Wazoku: “…RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce),…start off a journey towards a more innovative, inclusive and democratic policy-making model. The first in their series of three public Challenges has launched today, with a focus on how the economy can work for everyone. RSA is calling on the public to share ideas on how we, as purchasers, can get a better deal when going about our everyday lives. This might be something as small as buying groceries at the supermarket, something more substantial, such as deciding on which phone contract to choose, or even something as significant as buying a new home.

Sitting within a wider programme addressing the lack of transparency and involvement of the public when it comes to policy-making, the RSA’s mission is to do two things:

  1. Involve a broader cross-section of society in the decision-making process which will affect our livelihoods, such as our spending habits, how much tax we pay and what services we have access to.
  2. Help shape a more participatory model for policy-making which is open, collaborative and innovative….(More)”.