Crank.report Survey

The effort to define the open internet as being about “blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization” is a misleading head fake, a definitional misdirection that allows the ISPs to claim they would never block or throttle while leaving wide open their ability to make their own rules for everything else.

#Area #DigitalEquity

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Deeper involvement in the community started as an emergency response to the coronavirus pandemic. As schools shuttered their classrooms, many became hubs where families obtained food or internet access. Months later, many schools opened their doors to become vaccine centers.

#Area #CommunityAnchorInstitutions

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There are two key factors at play here: a loss of trust in journalistic institutions in favor of individuals, and a change in expectations around where to find content on the internet.

#Area #Journalism #TrustAndSafety

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However, the company is aiming to tackle some of the obstacles that have prevented users from joining and participating in the fediverse so far, including the technical hurdles around onboarding, finding people to follow and discovering interesting content to discuss.

#Area #Fediverse

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In our study, we found that Democrats are about twice as likely as Republicans to want to remove misinformation, while Republicans are about twice as likely as Democrats to consider removal of misinformation as censorship.

#Area #Misinformation

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When we talk about “the algorithm,” we mean a system for ordering information that uses complex criteria that are not precisely known to us, and than can’t be easily divined through an examination of the ordering.

#Area #Attention

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They have an entire personal history that you can never know and this history has shaped the way the read your words, the way your text affects them. That is, while you are in complete control of the text (you choose which words go in which order) you are not in control of the reading. This otherness of reading must be respected.

#Area #Writing

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Companies developing models that pose serious risks to public health and safety, the economy or national security will have to notify the federal government when training the model and share results of red-team safety tests before making models public.

#Area #AI

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Disinformation researchers have found relatively few A.I. fakes, and even fewer that are convincing. Yet the mere possibility that A.I. content could be circulating is leading people to dismiss genuine images, video and audio as inauthentic.

#Area #Disinformation

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The gene autocorrect problem was spotted nearly 20 years ago and appears to be getting worse. The proportion of genetics papers with autocorrect errors was estimated in 2020 to have reached 30 per cent. The Human Gene Name Consortium decided to rename the genes in question, wisely accepting that this would be easier than weaning researchers away from Excel. 

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These little badges used to mean ‘notable person’ (in a chaotic and inconsistent way typical of the old Twitter) and are now supposed only to mean ‘real person’ (but often don’t) - and they give you both amplification in all the algorithms and a share of revenue if you drive a lot of replies. The more you troll, and the more furious replies you generate, the more Twitter promotes you and the more Twitter pays you.

#Area #CommunityOrganizing #SocialMedia

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#UCLA #MarchingBand

If this ActivityPub-fueled change takes off, it will break every social network into a thousand pieces. All posts, of all types, will be separated from their platforms. We’ll get new tools for creating those posts, new tools for reading them, new tools for organizing them, and new tools for moderating them and sharing them and remixing them and everything else besides.

#Area #IndieWeb #ActivityPub

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Using Midjourney, we chose five prompts, based on the generic concepts of “a person,” “a woman,” “a house,” “a street,” and “a plate of food.” We then adapted them for different countries: China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and Nigeria. We also included the U.S. in the survey for comparison, given Midjourney (like most of the biggest generative AI companies) is based in the country. 

#Area #AI

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This study estimates the number of transgender teenagers affected by five types of laws and policies from the 2023 legislative session—gender-affirming care bans, bans on sports participation, bathroom bans, gender-affirming care “shield” laws, and conversion therapy bans.

#Area #HumanRights #LGBTQ

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Human well-being and dignity should be our North Star—with innovation in a supporting role.

#Area #AI

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A Theory of Change exercise prompts individuals to think beyond research outputs and consider the broader implications of their work. It compels researchers to articulate the intended impacts and establish the causal links between their research and desired outcomes. In this way a ToC helps make underlying assumptions explicit. The process challenges researchers to identify key audiences and determine effective communication channels. In co-creation settings, a ToC provides a structure for this overall design process.

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#area #theoryofchange

As we emerge into post-pandemic public spheres, we have the opportunity to imagine new versions of the public sphere, evident in concepts such as the 15-minute city, in which all needs can be met within a quarter-hour walk; the creation of third spaces to interact outside of home and work; and more broadly in the efforts to make both urban and rural areas greener and more flourishing.

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I’m taking the emerging adult to college this weekend.

I made a playlist.

Data helps illuminate the issues in our communities and allows to identify gaps in our understanding. Filling those gaps with knowledge and insights of grassroots organizations is exactly why I am motivated to work on this project.

How Google’s Data Commons uses AI to make data more accessible