If the answer is yes, who is looking for evidence
that this is happening? (Not just in the rankings of articles
returned, but in the headline words. “Obama...good”
Trump...hair”)
Can Google
influence election results?
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Feb 18, 2016
Via aeon – The
new mind control – The internet has spawned subtle forms of
influence that can flip elections and manipulate everything we say,
think and do by Robert
Epstein
“…[Search Engine Manipulation Effect]
SEME’s near-invisibility is curious indeed. It means that when
people – including you and me – are looking at biased search
rankings, they look just fine. So if right now you Google
‘US presidential candidates’, the search results you see will
probably look fairly random, even if they happen to favour one
candidate. Even I have trouble detecting bias in search
rankings that I know to be biased (because they were
prepared by my staff). Yet our randomised, controlled experiments
tell us over and over again that when higher-ranked items connect
with web pages that favour one candidate, this has a dramatic impact
on the opinions of undecided voters, in large part for the simple
reason that people tend to click only on higher-ranked items. This
is truly scary: like subliminal stimuli, SEME is a force you can’t
see; but unlike subliminal stimuli, it has an enormous impact –
like Casper the ghost pushing you down a flight of stairs. We
published a detailed report
about our first five experiments on SEME in the prestigious
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in
August 2015. We had indeed found something important, especially
given Google’s dominance over search. Google has a near-monopoly
on internet searches in the US, with 83 per cent of Americans
specifying Google as the search engine they use most often, according
to the Pew
Research Center. So if Google favours one candidate in an
election, its impact on undecided voters could easily decide the
election’s outcome.”
“Do. Or do not. There is no try.” Yoda
Hillary
Clinton: "I've always tried" to tell the truth
If Apple fails, what will the FBI to demand of
others?
Facebook,
Google, Twitter, Woz, Trump, McAfee, Snowden, and more take sides on
Apple vs. the FBI
… Here are some of the key (if not kooky)
testimonies in the court of public opinion.
… On Thursday, the social media giant issued a
statement acknowledging the “essential work” authorities do to
keep us safe, but Facebook also pledged to “fight
aggressively” against government efforts to curtail the security of
tech products.
… Steve Wozniak
The Apple cofounder spoke to CNBC on Thursday
about Apple’s recent privacy fight against the FBI.
“I’m not intimately involved in the fight, but
I’m definitely against [the court order],” Woz said.
… Google CEO Sundar Pichai
Pichai took to Twitter to praise Cook for speaking
out against the FBI’s demands. “Forcing companies to enable
hacking could compromise users’ privacy,” Pichai wrote.
… Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey
Dorsey took to Twitter to share Cook’s letter
and express his support for Apple.
… Donald Trump
“I agree 100 percent with the courts. In
that case, we should open it up,” Trump told “Fox & Friends,”
as reported by Politico.
… Edward Snowden
Snowden posted on Twitter that Apple’s fight
against the FBI is “the most important tech case in a decade.”
(Related) If the FBI had not gone public, would
Apple have done what they asked?
How Tim
Cook, in iPhone Battle, Became a Bulwark for Digital Privacy
… Apple had asked the F.B.I. to issue its
application for the tool under seal. But the government made it
public, prompting Mr. Cook to go into bunker mode to draft a
response, according to people privy to the discussions, who spoke on
condition of anonymity. The result was the letter that Mr. Cook
signed on Tuesday, where he argued that it set a “dangerous
precedent” for a company to be forced to build tools for the
government that weaken security.
Imagine this connected to police dash-cams. “Oh
look! A potential terrorist!”
Today, we're announcing the beta release of Google
Cloud Vision API. Now anyone can submit their images to the
Cloud Vision API to understand the contents of those images — from
detecting everyday objects (for example, “sports car,” “sushi,”
or “eagle”) to reading text within the image or identifying
product logos.
You ain't been harmed unless you can prove you've
been harmed.
Jason C. Gavejian writes:
The U.S. Court Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has ruled that statutory damages under the Stored Communications Act (SCA) are not available in a case where the plaintiff did not incur any actual damages.
The case, Vista Marketing LLC v. Burkett, originated from an extremely contentious divorce proceeding.
Read more on Workplace
Privacy, Data Management & Security Report.
(Related)
Peter Sullivan, Christopher Escobedo Hart and
Colin Zick of Foley Hoag write:
How much does the question of harm matter in cybersecurity law? The answer is: It depends on who is bringing the claim.
Businesses confronting data breaches can face litigation from private consumers as well as from governmental entities. Managing litigation risk varies in these contexts because of the limitations of bringing private rights of action. One such limitation is the requirement of proving actual harm in private actions. As explained further below, the bar for enforcement is lower when federal regulators bring an action against an entity. Businesses must be mindful that the lack of actual harm may not be an avenue to dismiss these claims. Employing best practices is still paramount in helping businesses mitigate the risks that come from private party suits and government enforcement actions.
Read their full article that includes mention of
notable court rulings and their implications on Security,
Privacy, and the Law.
Is this what Facebook should have done in India?
Could we do this in Denver?
New York’s
futuristic new pay phones don’t require any payment at all
New York's futuristic, high-tech pay phones --
which are embedded with touchscreen tablets – are finally going
live on Thursday.
The name "pay phone" doesn't quite do it
justice, of course. Yes, the city's LinkNYC terminals will allow you
to make domestic phone calls. But they'll also let you surf the Web,
pull up online maps and connect to city services like 311 and 911.
And all of it will be free,
thanks to built-in advertising.
Perspective. Perhaps there is hope?
Twitter’s
Account Suspensions Are Surprisingly Effective Against ISIS
… According to J.M. Berger and Heather Perez,
Twitter’s routine pruning of Islamic State-associated accounts has
kept the size of the Islamic State’s propaganda network small, and
has particularly damaged the reach and influence of the largest and
most prominent accounts.
The
researchers’ findings, published Thursday by the George
Washington University’s Program on Extremism, temper a general
sense of panic among government officials, sparked by the impression
that the Islamic State is “winning” a propaganda war against the
Western world.
Top lawmakers have lamented the effectiveness of
the group’s grassroots-like Twitter apparatus, and have launched
shaky attempts to counter it. In doing so, they have painted a
picture of a well-oiled propaganda machine that floods Twitter,
Facebook, and Telegram with pro-jihadi messages that inspire
Westerners to either travel to Iraq and Syria, or commit acts of
terrorism at home.
Perspective. A strong indication that smartphones
are ubiquitous?
Volvo
reveals plans to replace car keys with a smartphone app starting in
2016
The Swedish car maker has announced
a pilot program kicking off in Sweden this spring that will offer
cars without any kind of physical key or fob, with plans to make the
system available commercially in 2017.
Because I'm teaching spreadsheets in the Spring…
How to
Create Powerful Graphs & Charts in Microsoft Excel
Something our CJ students ca use?
California
DOJ’s OpenJustice Platform Makes Local Law Enforcement Data More
Transparent
OpenJustice,
an interactive web platform developed by the California Department of
Justice and spearheaded by the office of the attorney general, has
today released a new set of criminal justice data for the sake of
transparency and accountability.
It includes data from California’s 1,000-plus
law enforcement agencies to allow for side-by-side comparison of
agencies, like San Francisco Police Department versus Los Angeles
Police Department. The new local data also includes information on
the demographic information of both victims and offenders.
It can be free AND good.
The Public
Domain Review
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Feb 18, 2016
“Founded in 2011, The
Public Domain Review is an online journal and not-for-profit
project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works
from the history of art, literature, and ideas. In particular, as
our name suggests, the focus is on works which have now fallen into
the public
domain, that vast commons of out-of-copyright material that
everyone is free to enjoy, share, and build upon without restriction.
Our aim is to promote and celebrate the public domain in all its
abundance and variety, and help our readers explore its rich terrain
– like a small exhibition gallery at the entrance to an immense
network of archives and storage rooms that lie beyond. With a focus
on the surprising, the strange, and the beautiful, we hope to provide
an ever-growing cabinet of curiosities for the digital age, a kind of
hyperlinked Wunderkammer – an archive of content which
truly celebrates the breadth and diversity of our shared cultural
commons and the minds that have made it. The Main Parts of the Site:
-
The Collections – The vast majority of the content exists in our curated collections of images, books, audio and film, in which we shine a light on curiosities and wonders from a wide range of online archives.
-
The Essays – Every two weeks we publish a new long-form essay in which leading scholars, writers, archivists, and artists offer insight and reflection upon the oft overlooked histories which surround public domain works.
-
Curator’s Choice – In this series each month a curator from a gallery, library, archive, or museum picks out highlights from their openly licensed digital collections. Contributors include The British Library, the Rijksmuseum and the UK National Archives.”
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