June 2018 Archives

News digest | Open Society Information Program | Week ending 15 June 2018

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The Information Program NEWS DIGEST, published the second and fourth Thursdays of each month, aims to update colleagues in the Open Society Foundations and friends further afield about the news, opinions and events the Program team have been watching this fortnight. The views expressed in these stories do not necessarily reflect those of the Information Program or the OSF. Prepared by Wendy M. Grossman.


Our staff, advisers and major grantees tweet at http://bit.ly/13j5fjq. Current and former grantees featured in this issue: EFF, Open Rights Group.

NEWS

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For breaking news stories, visit: http://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:news/


Amazon partners with law enforcement on cheap facial recognition

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At the Washington Post, Elizabeth Dwoskin reports that documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California reveal that Amazon is selling - for minimal amounts - facial recognition tools known as "Rekognition" and related consulting services - to law enforcement agencies in Oregon and Orlando, Florida. A coalition of civil rights groups, including ACLU, EFF, and Human Rights Watch, has called on the company to end the program, which they argue could lead to increased surveillance of vulnerable communities. Matt Wood, the general manager of artificial intelligence at Amazon, has published a blog posting defending the company's decision. At Democracy Now, Center for Media Justice co-founder Malkia Cyril calls the program "terrifying" and inherently discriminatory.

Washington Post: https://wapo.st/2JxKxXN

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2JQRkLl

Democracy Now: http://bit.ly/2JNh9Mg


Max Schrems sues Google and Facebook over "forced consent"

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At The Register, Rebecca Hill reports that Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems celebrated May 25, the first day of enforcement of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), by using his NOYB non-profit organization to file lawsuits against Google and Facebook, along with Facebook subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram. Schrems' complaints argue that while the companies have introduced new privacy policies to comply with GDPR, the consent mechanisms do not meet the regulation's standards for specific consent.

Register: http://bit.ly/2JQhtdk


US: FBI caught overstating encryption problem

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At the Washington Post, Devlin Barrett reports that FBI director Christopher A. Wray has repeatedly overstated its concerns about encrypted cellphones. Instead of the nearly 7,800 devices the agency claimed investigators were locked out of in 2017, the true number is more likely to be between 1,000 and 2,000. The claim formed part of a campaign to prevent digital communications from "going dark" by ensuring law enforcement access to encrypted communications.

Washington Post: https://wapo.st/2HHyMYY


Tanzania orders unregistered bloggers to shut down

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Africa News reports that Tanzania has ordered all unregistered bloggers to shut down under new regulations coming into force in Tanzania that require all bloggers to apply for an online license by June 15. Registration costs bloggers and owners of online forums such as YouTube channels up to $900, approximately equal to the country's per capita income. Those convicted of failure to comply with the regulations face fines of at least $2,200 and 12 months in prison, or both. At Quartz Africa, Abdi Latif Dahir reports that among the closures is one of Tanzania's top homegrown online platforms, Jamii Forums. Founded in 2006, Jamii has been called the "Swahili version of Wikileaks" and the "Tanzanian Reddit". One of its founders appeared in court more than 50 times in 2017, and the site has been influential in exposing government corruption.

Africa News: http://bit.ly/2JLnsQp

Quartz: http://bit.ly/2t2wgHd


Brazil: Data protection law passes Lower House

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At America's Quarterly, Robert Muggah and Louise Marie Hurel report that the Brazilian' Lower House has passed legislation that would require all public and private entities operating in the country to secure users' and clients' consent to store their personal data. If approved by the Senate, although the law doesn't meet the standard set by the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, it will include many provisions to protect privacy and limit discriminatory profiling; it will also create a Data Protection Authority and a National Council for the Protection of personal Data. At G1, Marília Marques reports that after a three-month investigation the Public Ministry of the Federal District has found that the Federal Data Processing Service (Serpro) has been marketing and selling Brazilian's personal data. The case has been referred to the Federal Public Ministry.

America's Quarterly: http://bit.ly/2y5lztl

G1 (Portuguese): http://bit.ly/2t1YoKE

Google Translate (English): http://bit.ly/2JxKVFJ


European Parliament will vote June 20 on Copyright Directive

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The BBC reports that on June 20 the European Parliament will vote on the EU's proposed new Copyright Directive. Of particular concern is Article 13, which dozens of campaigning groups including Copyright4Creativity, the Open Rights Group, and EFF have warned could put an end to user-generated memes, remixes, and other content on the web by requiring platforms to filter out any uploaded content that violates copyright. At the Wikimedia blog, Jan Gerlach explains in detail the problems with Article 13: filters are generally overbroad; their use tends to expand into other areas not originally envisaged ("mission creep"); and automated content detection systems are expensive, disadvantaging start-ups and small sites. Communia, a network of activists, researchers, and practitioners from ten EU countries, proposes that the European Parliament should instead adopt the opinion of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO), which has also been adopted by the Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) and would limit Article 13's negative effects.

BBC: https://bbc.in/2Mls7qP

Wikimedia: http://bit.ly/2t4hXls

Communia: http://bit.ly/2sSBZQR


AI researchers boycott new Nature journal

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At the Guardian, machine learning researcher Neil Lawrence reports that more than 3,000 AI researchers have signed a pledge to boycott Springer Nature's new for-profit journal, Nature Machine Intelligence. Lawrence argues that since taxpayers fund his research they should not have to pay again to read the results, and that researchers at less well-funded universities deserve equal access.

Guardian: http://bit.ly/2LIvKGe



FEATURES AND ANALYSIS

====================

For more features and analysis selected by the Program team, visit:

http://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:oped/


Google's AI principles

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In this blog posting, Google CEO Sundar Pichai publishes the company's AI principles. These include creating social benefits, avoiding unfair bias, and testing for safety, and include values such as accountability, privacy, and scientific excellence. The posting also lists applications the company will not pursue: weapons, surveillance outside of internationally accepted norms, and technologies likely to cause overall harm. At Jacobin Mag, Ben Tarnoff interviews one of the Google employees who led the successful campaign to get the company to promise not to renew its Project Maven contract with the Pentagon, which uses machine learning to improve the targeting of drone strikes. A separate blog posting outlines the company's recommended practices for building AI systems. Finally, on his blog MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito discusses the need to incorporate ethics alongside the optimism characteristic of research at the boundaries of science and technology.

Google (principles): http://bit.ly/2sSYiFQ

Jacobin Mag: http://bit.ly/2t4vdXc

Google (responsibility): http://bit.ly/2HIjGlZ

Media Lab: http://bit.ly/2sSAmCI


Why Americans' location data is no longer private

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In this blog posting, investigative security journalist Brian Krebs studies the regulatory and technical background leading up to the LocationSmart breach. In mid-May, Krebs discovered that LocationSmart, a US-based aggregator of real-time mobile device location data, had been leaking location data for customers of all the major US mobile carriers via its website in real time without consent or the need for any form of authentication or authorization. It's not clear how the Federal Trade Commission will handle this or any of the other similar leaks involving T-Mobile, Comcast, and Securus Technologies. Worst of all, Krebs writes, even though Carnegie-Mellon researcher Robert Xiao has demonstrated that it's easy to look up the precise location of any mobile number in the US, public interest faded quickly.

Krebs: http://bit.ly/2JDPB8L


Israel's law to ban filming soldiers

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In this Guardian article, Roy Greenslade argues that Israel should abandon proposals for a law that would prohibit photographing or filming Israeli Defense Forces "with the intention of undermining the spirit" of the army and make violations punishable by five to ten years in prison. Images, he says, leave indelible truth in viewers' minds even when the text is filled with propaganda. At TheNewArab, CJ Werleman explains the background: the 2014 Israeli siege in Gaza was one of the first wars to be photographed by amateurs who distributed their images via social media.

Guardian: http://bit.ly/2JxLYFF

TheNewArab: http://bit.ly/2l4bGTl


Twenty years of surveillance

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At this page are hosted the video streams from the UK's Foundation for Information Policy Research 20th birthday celebration, a one-day conference outlining the past, present, and future of surveillance and the internet. Of particular note are Ross Anderson's introduction, former MP Julian Huppert's account of his experiences during the debates over the Communications Data Bill and Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act, philosopher Onora O'Neill's provocations, and revelations by Jen Persson, whose NGO defenddigitalme finds that UK's Department of Education collects as many as 400 data items per pupil and sells them on to commercial firms while refusing to grant subject access requests by schoolkids and their parents. At net.wars, Wendy M. Grossman has a summary of the day.

YouTube: http://bit.ly/2sTW8WB

net.wars: http://bit.ly/2MkmRE1


Platform business models and their influence on workers' well-being

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In this Medium article, Marija Gavrilov summarizes the International Labour Office's Future of Work research paper, which examines the business models and impact on workers of platforms such as Uber and Deliveroo. The report analyzes the platforms' propensity to contribute to worker exploitation, and recommends that regulators focus on enabling worker agency and reducing platform control, which is being eroded by practices such as refusing to share data on which decisions are made.

Medium: http://bit.ly/2MmhCn2

ILO (report, PDF): http://bit.ly/2JIrUfH


Our phones are listening

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In this article at Vice, Sam Nichols examines the widespread belief that Facebook uses its smartphone app to listen to our conversations and serve up related ads. After some experimentation, he concludes it's true: although Google and Apple require a trigger to activate Siri and OK Google, third-party apps may have thousands of triggers even though Facebook and others deny they listen. At the Guardian, Sam Wolfson reports that an Amazon Alexa device recorded a private conversation between its owner and her husband and sent it to a random contact in their address book. An Amazon spokesman confirmed the privacy breach but offered no explanation.

Vice: http://bit.ly/2t9usfV

Guardian: http://bit.ly/2ycBk1Q



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DIARY

==============

To see more events recommended by the Information Program team, visit:

https://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:events/. If you would like your event listed in this mail, email info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org.


22nd International Conference on Electronic Publishing

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June 22-24, 2018

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The theme of ELPUB 2018 is Connecting the Knowledge Commons: From Projects to Sustainable Infrastructure. The question of sustainability in the open access movement has been widely debated, yet satisfactory answers have yet to be generated. In the past, ELPUB has featured research results in various aspects of digital publishing, involving a diverse international community of librarians, developers, publishers, entrepreneurs, administrators and researchers across the disciplines in the sciences and the humanities. It is unique as a platform for both researchers, professionals and the broader community. The conference contains a multi-track presentation of refereed papers as well as invited keynotes, special sessions, demonstrations, and poster presentations.

http://bit.ly/2rB60Ef


LIBER Annual Conference

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July 4-6, 2018

Lille, France

The 47th annual conference of the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) will include plenary sessions with top international speakers, presentations on current research, posters, and an exhibition of products and services for the library sector, as well as a comprehensive social programme.

http://bit.ly/2zFcbbU


The Circle of HOPE

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July 20-22, 2018

New York, NY, USA

Organized by 2600 Magazine, the 12th biennial Hackers on Planet Earth conference celebrates the hacker spirit. Talks typically feature new ways of examining and dissecting technology to reveal inconvenient truths.

http://bit.ly/2BbzJpM


Defcon

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August 9-12, 2018

Las Vegas, NV, USA

The heart of the DEF CON 26 theme is the concept of the counterfuture. The counterfuture is the open-source alternative to totalitarian dystopia; a world where we use tech and ingenuity for empowerment and connection rather than isolation and control.

http://bit.ly/2A2ojUE


VOX-Pol Third Biennial Conference

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August 20-21, 2018

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

The VOX-Pol Network of Excellence (NoE) is a European Union Framework Programme 7 (FP7)-funded academic research network focused on researching the prevalence, contours, functions, and impacts of Violent Online Political Extremism and responses to it.c

http://bit.ly/2Hhzj3Q


World Library and Information Congress

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August 24-30, 2018

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The 84th edition of the World Library and Information Congress has the theme, "Transform Libraries, Transform Societies" with the additional tagline, "Reaching out to the hard to reach", which was chosen in recognition of the critical role played by libraries in the development of a nation, particularly in their ability to transform societies.

http://bit.ly/2qSXIta


Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) co-design workshop

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September 12 - 14, 2018

Johannesburg, South Africa

Co-hosted with Amnesty International, this workshop will develop innovative and collaborative approaches for using human rights data for impact, and agree on the next steps for HRMI's expansion of country and rights coverage.

http://bit.ly/2JwLWO6


SciELO 20 Years Conference

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September 26-28, 2018

São Paulo, Brazil

In 2018, the SciELO Program will celebrate 20 years of operation, in full alignment with the advances of open science. The conference will address and debate the main political, methodological, and technological issues and trends that define today's state of the art in scholarly communication. These issues will also be shaping the future of the universal openness of scholarly publishing and its relationship with today's Open Access journals, in particular those of the SciELO Network.

http://bit.ly/2FlpVzU


Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest V

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September 27-29

Washington, DC, US

The Global Congress is the main meeting of a global network of over 800 researchers, activists, and practitioners who work on the intersection of intellectual property and promotion of the public interest. The core goal is to promote evidence-based policy-making by fostering partnerships between academics and policy advocates from around the world.

http://bit.ly/2sSuVnn


Amsterdam Privacy Conference

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October 5-9, 2018

Amsterdam, Netherlands

APC 2018 brings together researchers, practitioners, policy makers and professionals in the field of privacy to share insights, exchange ideas and formulate, discuss and answer the challenging privacy questions that lie ahead of us. The goal of the conference is to bring together academics, policy makers, journalists, and practitioners to promote active discussion on timely topics, and foster debate on privacy issues between participants from various backgrounds and perspectives.

http://bit.ly/2ucbFEu


International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners

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October 22-26, 2018

Brussels, Belgium

The 40th version of this event will be hosted by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Giovanni Buttarelli and the chair of the Commission for Personal Data Protection of the Republic of Bulgaria, Ventsislav Karadjov. The conference is expected to focus on the recently launched international debate on the ethical dimension of data protection in the digital era. Accompanying conference events will also take place in Bulgaria.

http://bit.ly/2B1bX38


Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection 2019

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January 30 - February 1, 2019

Brussels, Belgium

The 12th international CPDP conference is accepting submissions for panel and session proposals until June 21, 2018.

http://bit.ly/2sSQ02x


We Robot 2019

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April 11-13, 2019

Miami, Florida, US

We Robot is an interdisciplinary conference on the legal and policy questions relating to robots. The increasing sophistication of robots and their widespread deployment everywhere - from the home, to hospitals, to public spaces, and even to the battlefield - disrupts existing legal regimes and requires new thinking on policy issues. The conference fosters conversations between the people designing, building, and deploying robots, and the people who design or influence the legal and social structures in which robots will operate.

http://bit.ly/2x6T3XD


re:publica 2019

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May 6-8, 2019

Berlin, Germany

The re:publica in Berlin is Europe's biggest conference on topics concerning digitization and society while also being one of the world's most exceptional festivals on digital culture. Since its beginnings in 2007 with 700 bloggers in attendance, it has grown into an international society conference. In 2017 it had 9,000 national and international participants from all areas of society.

http://bit.ly/2GMXl6o



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News digest | Open Society Information Program | Week ending 25 May 2018
====================================================
The Information Program NEWS DIGEST, published the second and fourth Thursdays of each month, aims to update colleagues in the Open Society Foundations and friends further afield about the news, opinions and events the Program team have been watching this fortnight. The views expressed in these stories do not necessarily reflect those of the Information Program or the OSF. Prepared by Wendy M. Grossman.

Our staff, advisers and major grantees tweet at http://bit.ly/13j5fjq. Current and former grantees featured in this issue: Benetech, EFF.

NEWS
=====
For breaking news stories, visit: http://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:news/

US Senate overrules Federal Communications Commission on network neutrality
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At Ars Technica, Jon Brodkin reports that on May 9 the US Senate voted 52-47 to reverse the Federal Communications Commission's December 2017 repeal of network neutrality rules. The measure, a Congressional Review Act, undoes the FCC's vote; to come into force it must be approved by the House and signed by President Trump by June 11, when the FCC's repeal is due to take effect. At EFF, Ernesto Falcon explains the "discharge petition" process that will be needed to force a vote in the House, which is known to be reluctant to consider network neutrality.
Ars Technica: http://bit.ly/2IJxg9Z
EFF: http://bit.ly/2IEA0cB

Sweden cancels agreement with Elsevier over Open Access
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Times Higher Education reports that the Bibsam Consortium, which represents 85 Swedish universities and research institutes, has announced it will not renew its agreement with Elsevier when it expires on June 30. The Swedish government has said that all publicly funded research should be made freely available by 2026; the consortium says that Elsevier has not met its open access-related requirements. In balking at journal publishers' requirements, Sweden joins Germany, which has a long-running dispute with Elsevier, and France, where The Scientist reports that in March research institutions canceled their agreement with Springer rather than pay the increased subscription rates the publisher wanted.
THE: http://bit.ly/2IGVups
Scientist: http://bit.ly/2J63Eap

Brazil: São Paulo metro stations embed facial recognition
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At CityLab, Ignacio Amigo reports that the Via Quattro, the concessionary operator São Paulo Metro's Yellow Line, has experimentally installed a set of interactive platform doors that display ads and information in three stations. The doors also incorporate sensors and facial recognition in order to monitor viewers' reactions. The line, which is the only privately-run section of São Paulo's transport system, carries approximately 305,000 passengers every weekday to the three stations. Although Marco. the Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet, has a chapter covering the rights of app users, the Yellow Line monitoring is not covered. This may change soon, as a vote on the Personal Data Protection bill is pending in the lower house of the National Congress.
CityLab: http://bit.ly/2s8BW1U

India: WhatsApp plays crucial role in Karnataka state elections
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At the New York Times, Vindu Goel reports that WhatsApp played a crucial role in political campaigning in the lead-up to the May 12 elections in the Indian state of Karnataka. WhatsApp is often overlooked in the West, but in developing countries it is playing an increasingly central role in elections, both to distribute campaign messages and to sow misinformation, disruption, and sectarian tensions. Goel cites as contributing factors the loss of originating information when messages are forwarded, anonymity for users who identify themselves solely by a phone number, and the lack of transparency to outsiders because of the service's end-to-end encryption. Goel concludes that what, if any, effect WhatsApp had on Karnataka's final election results may never be clear.
New York Times: https://nyti.ms/2xd95iG

US: Court bars President Donald Trump from blocking Twitter users
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At Reuters, Brendan Pierson reports that US District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in New York has ruled that President Donald F. Trump, who tweets as @RealDonaldTrump, cannot legally block Twitter users because doing so violates their free speech rights under the First Amendment. Buchwald did not order Trump to unblock the users he has already blocked, but said she assumed that either he or his co-defendant and social media director, Dan Scanvino, would do so given her decision. The case was brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and several Twitter users, who argued that by blocking users critical of him Trump was shutting them out of discussion in a public forum.
Reuters: https://reut.rs/2J06qOe

Benetech discontinues Martus human rights reporting software
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At its blog, Benetech reports that it intends to cease development of its 15-year-old end-to-end encrypted Martus software for human rights data collection. While Benetech remains convinced that such a system is sorely needed by the human rights community, it believes that it is not practical to move forward with it given current technical requirements. Benetech stresses that it is not aware of existing vulnerabilities in the software and that the Martus backup server will continue to be available for use. The group is beginning to coordinate conversations to identify and address gaps and needs around human rights documentation.
Benetech: http://bit.ly/2kmxB7Y

Researchers devise inaudible commands that drive voice assistants
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At the New York Times, Craig S. Smith reports that researchers can send secret audio instructions the human ear can't detect to the speech-driven devices Siri (Apple), Alexa (Amazon), and Assistant (Google). Researchers in both China and the US have shown they can secretly activate these systems on smartphones and smart speakers and, simply by playing music, make them dial phone numbers or open websites - and, potentially, unlock doors, wire money, or make purchases online. All three companies say they have security measures in place including voice recognition and device locking. However, many people leave their devices unlocked, and interference techniques are improving all the time. So far, none have been seen in the wild. At the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue blog, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood communications and operations manager Melissa Campbell advises parents not to buy Amazon's new Echo Dot Kids for both developmental and privacy reasons.
New York Times: https://nyti.ms/2LrJe9V
TACD: http://bit.ly/2s7o8oE


FEATURES AND ANALYSIS
====================
For more features and analysis selected by the Program team, visit:
http://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:oped/

The first real look at Facebook's community standards enforcement
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In this article at Gizmodo, Rhett Jones discusses Facebook's first bi-annual content moderation report, which shows that the company's moderation systems caught more objectionable content in the first quarter of 2018 than in the last quarter of 2017. However, because Facebook can't say how big the problem is, it's hard to determine whether the company's algorithmic systems are improving or whether the amount of objectionable content is increasing. Facebook estimates that fake accounts represent 3% to 4% of its estimated monthly active user base of 2.2 billion; in the first quarter of 2018 the company removed 583 million fake accounts. About 21 million pieces of content classed as nudity and sexual content were removed in each quarter; 38% of hate speech was removed before being reported by users. EFF's Jillian C. York praises the company's first steps toward transparency, but would like greater clarity about the reasons for content deletion, the mistakes moderators and automated systems make, and differentiation between the removal of fake accounts versus suspensions for other violations.
Gizmodo: http://bit.ly/2Lqxaph
EFF: http://bit.ly/2xcPpMe

Poking the intellectual property bear
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In this Wired article, Lawrence Lessig opposes the Classics Act, which would create a new digital performance right for musical recordings made before 1972. This new right, Lessig argues, is effectively a term extension, as the new right in these recordings would be protected until 2067, 144 years after some of them were created. Archives streaming early recordings that are currently in the public domain would now have to clear permission. The bill has passed the House of Representatives and is pending in the Senate; 40 professors of intellectual property have signed a letter asking Congress to reject the act. In a follow-up at Medium, Lessig addresses some of the most common attacks on him and his arguments.
https://www.wired.com/story/congress-latest-move-to-extend-copyright-protection-is-misguided/
Medium: http://bit.ly/2IIQHzN

The Selfish Ledger
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In this video clip obtained by The Verge, Google conducts a thought experiment to imagine a future in which collections of information known as "ledgers", like "selfish genes", use individuals to meet their own goals. In this imaginary future, through total data collection Google guides the behavior of individuals toward set goals and entire populations to solve global problems. The company explained that the clip is intentionally disturbing to provoke internal discussion but is not related to any current or future products. Creating a spectrum of "deservingness", Eubanks finds, often means prioritizing cost-effectiveness over need, and these systems are based on data drawn only from those who use the public programs, adding further discriminatory effects.
Verge: http://bit.ly/2J1khDX

Algorithms won't make poverty go away
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In this feature at the Guardian, Virginia Eubanks, author of Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor, travels the US investigating the use of AI-driven decision systems for allocating scarce resources to poor people. Automated eligibility systems remove discretion from caseworkers and replace welfare offices with forms and privatized call centers; the result is that often the people who need the services are barred from using them. In a video clip at Data & Society, Safiya Umoja Noble, the author of Algorithms of Oppression, discusses the social problem of data discrimination and the biased search algorithms that discriminate against women of color.
Guardian: http://bit.ly/2kijj8l
Data & Society: http://bit.ly/2ki56bp

The problem with Chinese GPS
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In this posting at Now I Know, Dan Lewis discusses discrepancies in Chinese digital maps such as those available at Google due to technical differences between the World Geodetic System 1984, the basis for most of the world's mapping and guidance systems, and China's own GCJ-02 cartography system. China, Lewis writes, regards map data as a matter of national security, applies an obfuscation algorithm, and requires map-makers to obtain a cartography license. Translation tools exist, but they're hard to find, not that reliable, and against Chinese law.
Now I Know: http://bit.ly/2IIedNn

The untold story of Japan's secret spy agency
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In this article at The Intercept, Ryan Gallegher explores the past and present inner workings of Japan's equivalent of the US National Security Agency, C1. The article is based on a joint investigation by The Intercept and Japanese broadcaster NHK, beginning with the first internal document from Japan's surveillance agency that has ever been disclosed, which formed part of the cache of documents leaked by Edward Snowden. Work at C1's base at Tachiarai, about 700 miles southwest of Tokyo seems to focus on monitoring the activities of foreign countries by intercepting communications and data passing among the 200-plus satellites visible from there. Helping C1 is the specialist technical Ministry of Defense-connected J6 unit, which among other things analyzes malware and develops anti-hacking countermeasures.
Intercept: http://bit.ly/2J1G8v6


***

DIARY
==============
To see more events recommended by the Information Program team, visit:
https://pinboard.in/u:osi_info_program/t:events/. If you would like your event listed in this mail, email info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org.

Foundation for Information Policy Research 20th anniversary
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May 29, 2018
Cambridge, UK
For its 20th anniversary, the UK's Foundation for Information Policy Research, founded to campaign against 1990s proposals for surveillance laws, will host a debate in Cambridge featuring representatives of NGOs and GCHQ, academia and DeepMind, the press and the Cabinet Office. Should governments be able to break the encryption on our phones? Are we entitled to any privacy for our health and social care records? And what can be done about fake news? If the Internet's going to be censored, who do we trust to do it?
http://bit.ly/2I65WT2

Privacy Law Scholars
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May 30-31
Washington, DC, USA
PLSC is a paper workshop with the goal of improving and providing support for in-progress scholarship. To achieve this, PLSC assembles a wide array of privacy law scholars and practitioners from around the world to discuss the papers. Scholars from many disciplines (psychology/economics, sociology, philosophy, political science, computer science, and even math) also participate.
http://bit.ly/2zgypRQ

Internet Shutdowns in Africa Workshop
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June 7-8, 2018
Johannesburg, South Africa
Internet shutdowns in Africa doubled between 2015 and 2016, affecting citizens in 11 countries on the continent. While the number declined slightly in 2017, governments that resorted to disrupting the internet did so more frequently and for longer periods. The justifications are diverse, from anti-government protests to Cameroon, to exam cheating in Ethiopia, concerns about election-related violence in Uganda, and quelling social unrest in Zimbabwe. This two-day conference is aimed at sparking in-depth and productive conversations about this issue. It is organized by the ERC-funded ConflictNet programme at the University of Oxford's Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, the CSLS, the Bonavero Institute for Human Rights, and the Department of Journalism, Film and Television at the University of Johannesburg's School of Communication. 
http://bit.ly/2HkVpSX

Personal Democracy Forum
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June 7-8, 2018
New York, NY, USA
Since 2004, Personal Democracy Forum ("PDF") has been the go-to place to tap into a community that believes in the power of technology to change politics and governance for the better.  This year's PDF, the 15th, will focus on meaningful collaboration, action, and participatory learning. Our number one goal is to plug attendees into the process of change-making. This year's theme, How We Make Good, will focus on how we turn our commitments - to democracy and ensuring that tech works for the public good - into concrete action.
http://bit.ly/2FjLAbD

22nd International Conference on Electronic Publishing
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June 22-24, 2018
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The theme of ELPUB 2018 is Connecting the Knowledge Commons: From Projects to Sustainable Infrastructure. The question of sustainability in the open access movement has been widely debated, yet satisfactory answers have yet to be generated. In the past, ELPUB has featured research results in various aspects of digital publishing, involving a diverse international community of librarians, developers, publishers, entrepreneurs, administrators and researchers across the disciplines in the sciences and the humanities. It is unique as a platform for both researchers, professionals and the broader community. The conference contains a multi-track presentation of refereed papers as well as invited keynotes, special sessions, demonstrations, and poster presentations.
http://bit.ly/2rB60Ef

LIBER Annual Conference
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July 4-6, 2018
Lille, France
The 47th annual conference of the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) will include plenary sessions with top international speakers, presentations on current research, posters, and an exhibition of products and services for the library sector, as well as a comprehensive social programme.
http://bit.ly/2zFcbbU

The Circle of HOPE
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July 20-22, 2018
New York, NY, USA
Organized by 2600 Magazine, the 12th biennial Hackers on Planet Earth conference celebrates the hacker spirit. Talks typically feature new ways of examining and dissecting technology to reveal inconvenient truths.
http://bit.ly/2BbzJpM

Defcon
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August 9-12, 2018
Las Vegas, NV, USA
The heart of the DEF CON 26 theme is the concept of the counterfuture. The counterfuture is the open-source alternative to totalitarian dystopia; a world where we use tech and ingenuity for empowerment and connection rather than isolation and control.
http://bit.ly/2A2ojUE

VOX-Pol Third Biennial Conference
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August 20-21, 2018
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The VOX-Pol Network of Excellence (NoE) is a European Union Framework Programme 7 (FP7)-funded academic research network focused on researching the prevalence, contours, functions, and impacts of Violent Online Political Extremism and responses to it.c
http://bit.ly/2Hhzj3Q

World Library and Information Congress
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August 24-30, 2018
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
The 84th edition of the World Library and Information Congress has the theme, "Transform Libraries, Transform Societies" with the additional tagline, "Reaching out to the hard to reach", which was chosen in recognition of the critical role played by libraries in the development of a nation, particularly in their ability to transform societies.
http://bit.ly/2qSXIta

SciELO 20 Years Conference
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September 26-28, 2018
São Paulo, Brazil
In 2018, the SciELO Program will celebrate 20 years of operation, in full alignment with the advances of open science. The conference will address and debate the main political, methodological, and technological issues and trends that define today's state of the art in scholarly communication. These issues will also be shaping the future of the universal openness of scholarly publishing and its relationship with today's Open Access journals, in particular those of the SciELO Network.
http://bit.ly/2FlpVzU

Amsterdam Privacy Conference
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October 5-9, 2018
Amsterdam, Netherlands
APC 2018 brings together researchers, practitioners, policy makers and professionals in the field of privacy to share insights, exchange ideas and formulate, discuss and answer the challenging privacy questions that lie ahead of us. The goal of the conference is to bring together academics, policy makers, journalists, and practitioners to promote active discussion on timely topics, and foster debate on privacy issues between participants from various backgrounds and perspectives.
http://bit.ly/2ucbFEu

International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners
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October 22-26, 2018
Brussels, Belgium
The 40th version of this event will be hosted by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Giovanni Buttarelli and the chair of the Commission for Personal Data Protection of the Republic of Bulgaria, Ventsislav Karadjov. The conference is expected to focus on the recently launched international debate on the ethical dimension of data protection in the digital era. Accompanying conference events will also take place in Bulgaria.
http://bit.ly/2B1bX38

Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection 2019
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January 30 - February 1, 2019
Brussels, Belgium
The 12th international CPDP conference is accepting submissions for panel and session proposals until June 21, 2018.
http://bit.ly/2sSQ02x

We Robot 2019
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April 11-13, 2019
Miami, Florida, US
We Robot is an interdisciplinary conference on the legal and policy questions relating to robots. The increasing sophistication of robots and their widespread deployment everywhere - from the home, to hospitals, to public spaces, and even to the battlefield - disrupts existing legal regimes and requires new thinking on policy issues. The conference fosters conversations between the people designing, building, and deploying robots, and the people who design or influence the legal and social structures in which robots will operate.
http://bit.ly/2x6T3XD

re:publica 2019
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May 6-8, 2019
Berlin, Germany
The re:publica in Berlin is Europe's biggest conference on topics concerning digitization and society while also being one of the world's most exceptional festivals on digital culture. Since its beginnings in 2007 with 700 bloggers in attendance, it has grown into an international society conference. In 2017 it had 9,000 national and international participants from all areas of society.
http://bit.ly/2GMXl6o

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