Whose Side are Ethics Codes On? Power, Responsibility and the Social Good

The moral authority of ethics codes stems from an assumption that they serve a unified society, yet this ignores the political aspects of any shared resource. The sociologist Howard S. Becker challenged researchers to clarify their power and responsibility in the classic essay: Whose Side Are We On. Building on Becker's hierarchy of credibility, we report on a critical discourse analysis of data ethics codes and emerging conceptualizations of beneficence, or the "social good", of data technology. The analysis revealed that ethics codes from corporations and professional associations conflated consumers with society and were largely silent on agency. Interviews with community organizers about social change in the digital era supplement the analysis, surfacing the limits of technical solutions to concerns of marginalized communities. Given evidence that highlights the gulf between the documents and lived experiences, we argue that ethics codes that elevate consumers may simultaneously subordinate the needs of vulnerable populations. Understanding contested digital resources is central to the emerging field of public interest technology. We introduce the concept of digital differential vulnerability to explain disproportionate exposures to harm within data technology and suggest recommendations for future ethics codes.Comment: Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT* '20), January 27-30, 2020, Barcelona, Spain. Correcte

'Nothing Up My Sleeve': Information Warfare and the Magical Mindset

This chapter outlines how human factors have been, are being, and could be leveraged as key strategic tools in information warfare and online influence in general. The cyber domain is an informational space, and those who inhabit it (i.e. the majority of the inhabitants of the modern world) can all too easily fall prey to mis/disinformation, 'fake news', rumour, and propaganda. The chapter will examine the following questions: a. What are the key challenges facing those confronting the shifting contours of the informational environment? b. How can cyber security learn from the history of deception as a tool of influence; in particular, what can be gained from examining the interaction between the history of warfare and its connections with magic as an art form which relies on the manipulation of human cognition? c. How might the adoption of a 'magical mindset' enable us to both mitigate hostile influence operations and enable our own offensive capability