12 Matching Annotations
  1. Nov 2017
    1. truly pursue its lofty goals

      Again, which seems to be a problem for most of these critiques, is the acceptance of fb's claims about who/what they are. FB started as a way to rate college students based on their looks. It's now the biggest surveillance engine the world has ever seen. Zuck pitches "community" but users of the platform have no rights other than those granted by Zuck, no ability to make or change the rules of the "community" and no choice in how that "community" uses their data. It's telling that users are an afterthought in most of these suggestions.

    2. Whistle-blowers and dissidents might need to use a different platform.)

      The way that he casually mentions whistle blowers and dissidents is troubling to say the least. Also, will dig up studies, but removing anonymity hasn't really shown to decrease trolling or other bad behavior. Also, "privacy" anyone?

      http://theweek.com/articles/632929/problem-internet-trolls-isnt-anonymity

    3. Given this problem, Facebook needs to help us unite by building new sharing tools based on trust and respect.

      I respect Albright, but this buys into the notion of "sharing" that facebook (and other platforms tbh) have sold us. The model of fb is to monetize our relationships and control the feed to maximize engagement. This is antithetical to trust and respect--the information asymmetry and lack of user control don't allow for trust or respect.

    4. Democrat representing California’s 17th Congressional District, which includes sections of Silicon Valley.

      It's interesting that the lawmaker on the panel keeps saying what facebook needs to do but doesn't propose anything like legislation. Regulations of platforms are pretty much nonexistent in the United States. We shouldn't have to ask for transparency; there should be regulations that mandate it.

  2. Oct 2017
    1. A routine of plagiarism detection structures-[results?] in distrust

      I often liken "plagiarism detection" to American endeavors on the state level to force anyone who receives any public benefits to undergo a drug test. They are always failures and huge wastes of funds, but what's more is that the starting point is that everyone is a drug user (or a cheat w/plagiarism detection) and it's their job to prove that they are not. This is bad pedagogy, and imho don't set the proper tone for a classroom that should be based on trust and the idea of collaboration. A few good essays to read: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-04-19-online-courses-shouldn-t-use-remote-proctoring-tools-here-s-why

      http://www2.bgsu.edu/departments/english/cconline/spring2013_special_issue/Vie/index.html

  3. Oct 2016
    1. us
    2. Long Range Acoustic Devices

      Also used in the United States against protesters.

    3. Foundation

      We can see this too in the literature about stingrays and predictive policing. People across all demographics consumer drugs at around the same rates, but poor and minority populations are much more targeted for those crimes.

    4. algorithms and search strings that filter big data looking for patterns, that begin as neutral code, nevertheless end up producing race, class, and gender-specific results.

      This is a great article that discusses the "disparate impact" of big data: http://www.californialawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2Barocas-Selbst.pdf

  4. Aug 2016
    1. "black boxes"

      BTW, if you are interested in privacy, and haven't read Frank Pasqaule's Black Box Society, you should!

  5. Mar 2016
    1. I think those debates are actually artefacts of going about it the wrong way: a history of institutions handing people tech instead of starting with the pedagogy.

      I had an interesting exchange w/a developer at sxswedu. He wanted to know how to get profs to use a tech, and I asked him "at what stage of the tech's design are you involving profs?" He was flummoxed.

    2. I would like to see our universities modelling themselves more closely on what we should be looking for in society generally: networked, open, transparent,

      I need a little bit more info here as to what this means. "Open" here is treated as a good w/o much explanation. I can think of several reasons students might not want an open classroom. Often classrooms are places for people to take risks, which they can do because it's a safer space than what's outside.