Just Tech

Research

Individual and collective coping with racial discrimination: What drives social media activism among Asian Americans during the COVID-19 outbreak | New Media & Society

by Weiting Tao, Jo-Yun Li, Yeunjae Lee, Mu He

What drives racial minorities to partake in social media activism for racial justice? Answers to this question are vital and urgent, particularly in view of growing anti-Asian hate crimes amid the current pandemic. Motivated to address this question, we draw insights from the transactional model of stress and coping, the situational theory of problem solving (STOPS), and social media activism literature. We propose an integrative model that delineates the psychological antecedents and processes leading Asian Americans to cope with racial discrimination and engage in social media activism. Results of an online survey among 400 Asian Americans supported the proposed model, highlighting a perception-motivation-coping-activism effect chain. Our study advances the three bodies of literature—coping, STOPS, and social media activism—in the context of racial discrimination concerning an understudied minority group: Asian Americans. It also renders meaningful insights to organizations, groups, and governments that seek to support this community. Source: Individual and collective coping with racial discrimination: What drives social media activism among Asian Americans during the COVID-19 outbreak – Weiting Tao, Jo-Yun Li, Yeunjae Lee, Mu He, 2022

June 9, 2022

Research

Design From the Margins | Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

by Afsaneh Rigot

In an age of virtual connectivity and increased reliance on the internet for daily functions, including by marginalized groups, can companies and technologists reframe their features or standards to support the most marginalized users’ needs? Can the modes of resilience within digital spaces from some of the most marginalized groups be listened to, learned from, and centered when creating technology? Design From the Margins (DFM), a design process that centers the most impacted and marginalized users from ideation to production, pushes the notion that not only is this something that can and must be done, but also that it is highly beneficial for all users and companies. For this to happen, consumer interest conversations need to be framed outside the “biggest use case” scenarios and United States and European Union-centrisms and refocused on the cases often left in the margins: the decentered cases. This report outlines how the DFM method can be used to build our most well-known and relied-upon technologies for decentered cases (often deemed “edge cases” which is atypical or less common use case for a product) from the beginning of the design process, rather than retrofitting them post-deployment to cater to communities with what are perceived to be extra needs. [...] Source: Design From the Margins | Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

May 13, 2022

Research

American Dragnet Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century | Georgetown Law

by Georgetown Center on Privacy & Technology

When you think about government surveillance in the United States, you likely think of the National Security Agency or the FBI. You might even think of a powerful police agency, such as the New York Police Department. But unless you or someone you love has been targeted for deportation, you probably don’t immediately think of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This report argues that you should. Our two-year investigation, including hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests and a comprehensive review of ICE’s contracting and procurement records, reveals that ICE now operates as a domestic surveillance agency. Since its founding in 2003, ICE has not only been building its own capacity to use surveillance to carry out deportations but has also played a key role in the federal government’s larger push to amass as much information as possible about all of our lives. By reaching into the digital records of state and local governments and buying databases with billions of data points from private companies, ICE has created a surveillance infrastructure that enables it to pull detailed dossiers on nearly anyone, seemingly at any time. In its efforts to arrest and deport, ICE has – without any judicial, legislative or public oversight – reached into datasets containing personal information about the vast majority of people living in the U.S., whose records can end up in the hands of immigration enforcement simply because they apply for driver’s licenses; drive on the roads; or sign up with their local utilities to get access to heat, water and electricity. [...] Source: American Dragnet | Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century

May 10, 2022

Research

Conversations on The Datafied State | Data & Society

by Jenna Burrell and Ranjit Singh

The Datafied State is an emerging research agenda that seeks to explore the relationship between datafication and public administration. It is concerned with the proliferation of data sources, infrastructures, and computational techniques adopted across the public sector. The processes through which governments procure, develop, implement, and legally mandate the use of digital and computational systems are increasingly blurring the boundaries between what is considered public and private. So, how datafied is the state today? How can we find out? Data & Society is hosting a series of conversations with researchers, technology designers, lawyers, activists, policy experts, and public administrators to articulate this agenda across three lines of inquiry: algorithms, automation, and surveillance. The goals of this series are to develop a shared understanding of the ways datafication organizes civic life and to examine how governments use these techniques to distribute benefits and risks to their constituents. Source: Data & Society — Conversations on The Datafied State

April 26, 2022

Research

My journey down the rabbit hole of every journalist’s favorite app | POLITICO

by Phelim Kine

So when I talked to Aksu in November, I made sure to use Signal, an encrypted phone app, to protect our discussion about psychological trauma afflicting Uyghurs overseas. The next day, I received an odd note from Otter.ai, the automated transcription app that I had used to record the interview. It read: “Hey Phelim, to help us improve your Otter’s experience, what was the purpose of this particular recording with titled ‘Mustafa Aksu’ created at ‘2021-11-08 11:02:41’?” Three responses were offered: “Personal transcription,” “Meeting or group collaboration,” and “Other.” I froze. Was this a phishing attack? Was Otter or some entity that had access to Otter’s servers spying on my conversations? I contacted Otter to verify if this was indeed a real survey or some clever phishing ruse. An initial confirmation that the survey was legitimate was followed by a denial from the same Otter representative, laced with a warning that I “not respond to that survey and delete it.” My communications with Otter were all restricted to email and were sporadic, often confusing and contradictory. In the three months since that initial exchange (and there was more to come), I’ve gone down the rabbit hole — talking to cybersecurity experts, press freedom advocates and a former government official — to try and understand what vulnerabilities and risks are present in this app that’s become a favorite among journalists for its fast, reliable and cheap automated transcription. Source: My journey down the rabbit hole of every journalist’s favorite app | POLITICO

February 28, 2022

Research

Visions of the Internet in 2035 | Pew Research Center

by Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie

This report is the second of two analyzing the insights of hundreds of technology experts who responded in the summer of 2021 to a canvassing of their predictions about the evolution of online public spaces and their role in democracy in the coming years. In response to the primary research question, many said they expect that these forums will be significantly improved by 2035 if reformers, big technology firms, governments and activists tackle the problems created by misinformation, disinformation and toxic discourse. At the same time, they expressed ongoing concerns about the destructive forces in culture and technology that could continue to plague online life and disrupt beneficial change in the coming years. In that canvassing, Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center asked a follow-up question inviting these experts to share their vision for what a better digital world could be like in 2035. This report covers scores of those responses. Many envisioned a vastly more hospitable online environment that facilitates socially enriching relationships; the flowering of knowledge-creating communities; growth of truth-seeking group discussions; and new kinds of interactions enabled by artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). At best, they imagine tech-aided collaborations – sometimes global in scale – that can tackle the world’s most pressing questions. Source: Visions of the Internet in 2035 | Pew Research Center

February 28, 2022

Research

Wearing Many Hats: The Rise of the Professional Security Hacker | Data & Society

by Matt Goerzen and Gabriella Coleman

Wearing Many Hats: the Rise of the Professional Security Hacker chronicles the largely untold history of the hacker-turned-professional. Through this seminal work, researchers Matt Goerzen and Gabriella Coleman collaborate to chart the movements of the digital underground during the 1990s to reveal what underground technologists or “hackers”, did—technically, linguistically, and culturally—to establish their legitimacy as employable, trustworthy security experts. Over the course of a decade, hackers were able to legitimize their professional place in society by 1) negotiating full-disclosure security research practices in which hackers and technologists openly published security vulnerabilities; and by 2) reconfiguring their image through a combination of PR stunts, media collaborations, and rhetorical interventions that gave rise to the adoption by hackers of imaginary hats (black, white, and gray) that expressed one’s level of willingness to work inside or outside the law. Both efforts proved sufficient in transforming a fringe, underground subculture into a security-minded workforce whose members are now recognized as trustworthy security experts and legitimate employees of governments and corporations. Based on dozens of interviews and expert analyses of archival data, Goerzen and Coleman’s collection of this previously (mostly) untold history of the digital underground during the 1990s not only reveals a transformative period in which hackers transitioned from security risks to security professionals, but also provides insight into how many in the digital underground became outspoken advocates of both computer security and the public interest despite being characterized by government, private enterprise, and the media as anarchists and criminals. Source: Wearing Many Hats: The Rise of the Professional Security Hacker | Data & Society

January 26, 2022

Research

Health-related fake news during the COVID-19 pandemic: perceived trust and information search | Emerald Insight

by Lei Zheng, Jon D. Elhai, Miao Miao, Yu Wang, Yiwen Wang, and Yiqun Gan

The authors' results underscore the important role of PADM in understanding Internet users' trust in and search for HOFN. When people trust HOFN, they may seek more information to implement further protective actions. Importantly, it appears that trust in HOFN varies with environmental cues (regional pandemic severity) and with individuals' perceived control, providing insight into developing coping strategies during a pandemic. Source: Health-related fake news during the COVID-19 pandemic: perceived trust and information search | Emerald Insight

January 17, 2022

Research

Impact of Information Communication Technology on labor productivity: A panel and cross-sectional analysis | ScienceDirect

by Yash Laddha, Aviral Tiwari, Rafał Kasperowicz, Yuriy Bilan, and Dalia Streimikiene

This article examines the contribution of information and communications technologies (ICT) to labor productivity using panel data approach. The study covers the period of 2000–2015 for a complete dataset of 98 countries as well for three selected groups: low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries. The findings imply that telephone subscription and broadband subscription have a significant impact on overall labor productivity as well as labor productivity of service sector. The ICT affects the labor productivity, so investing in Information Communication Technology is necessary to increase the labor productivity. Source: Impact of Information Communication Technology on labor productivity: A panel and cross-sectional analysis | ScienceDirect

January 17, 2022