Disentangling economic and political goals in the net neutrality debate

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Media Development and Media Reform: Time for Change

Actors shape their communicative environment to suit their needs and the needs of their fellow citizens. Yet, in spite of the innovations and agency found on the continent, African media remains strongly influenced by colonial legacies ranging from colonial media infrastructure and operational logic. What’s more, models of journalism, especially those from Britain, Germany and France, are taught and practiced in independent African countries; meanwhile African talk shows, soap operas, and newscasts follow formats developed in the colonial era; and the very messages transmitted by African broadcasts and in African newspapers can frequently be traced back to news sources in Britain, France and Germany. Amid this contradiction, those pursuing media development must remain uniquely focused on ensuring that the media being developed is relevant. This chapter gives some indication of where more relevant forms of media development are likely to emerge in Africa

Mapping Digital Media: Canada

The Mapping Digital Media project examines the global opportunities and risks created by the transition from traditional to digital media. Covering 60 countries, the project examines how these changes affect the core democratic service that any media system should provide: news about political, economic, and social affairs.Canadians are among the most engaged and active users of digital media in the world, and digitization has had particular consequences for such a vast, largely urbanized and sparsely populated country. Although progress in some aspects has been exemplary, geographic complexities and a lack of leadership by the federal government have produced challenges and delays in others. In particular, while Canadians lead the world in areas relating to digital media take-up, the federal government has yet to finalize an official, comprehensive digital strategy similar to the EU's Digital Agenda for Europe or the National Broadband Plan in the United States.It is essential that the federal government tables a cohesive and comprehensive Digital Economy Strategy in consultation with all stakeholders, including the public. Such a unified, forward-thinking approach is needed if Canada is to forge a comprehensive and progressive agenda for the continued development of digital media infrastructure, services, and access

Dark Patterns after the GDPR: Scraping Consent Pop-ups and Demonstrating their Influence

New consent management platforms (CMPs) have been introduced to the web to conform with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, particularly its requirements for consent when companies collect and process users' personal data. This work analyses how the most prevalent CMP designs affect people's consent choices. We scraped the designs of the five most popular CMPs on the top 10,000 websites in the UK (n=680). We found that dark patterns and implied consent are ubiquitous; only 11.8% meet the minimal requirements that we set based on European law. Second, we conducted a field experiment with 40 participants to investigate how the eight most common designs affect consent choices. We found that notification style (banner or barrier) has no effect; removing the opt-out button from the first page increases consent by 22--23 percentage points; and providing more granular controls on the first page decreases consent by 8--20 percentage points. This study provides an empirical basis for the necessary regulatory action to enforce the GDPR, in particular the possibility of focusing on the centralised, third-party CMP services as an effective way to increase compliance.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures. To appear in the Proceedings of CHI '20 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 25--30, 2020, Honolulu, HI, US

A GWAS sequence variant for platelet volume marks an alternative DNM3 promoter in megakaryocytes near a MEIS1 binding site

We recently identified 68 genomic loci where common sequence variants are associated with platelet count and volume. Platelets are formed in the bone marrow by megakaryocytes, which are derived from hematopoietic stem cells by a process mainly controlled by transcription factors. The homeobox transcription factor MEIS1 is uniquely transcribed in megakaryocytes and not in the other lineage-committed blood cells. By ChIP-seq, we show that 5 of the 68 loci pinpoint a MEIS1 binding event within a group of 252 MK-overexpressed genes. In one such locus in DNM3, regulating platelet volume, the MEIS1 binding site falls within a region acting as an alternative promoter that is solely used in megakaryocytes, where allelic variation dictates different levels of a shorter transcript. The importance of dynamin activity to the latter stages of thrombopoiesis was confirmed by the observation that the inhibitor Dynasore reduced murine proplatelet for-mation in vitro

Big Data and : Walter Lippmann and the fallacy of data privacy self-management

In 1927, Walter Lippmann published The Phantom Public , denouncing the ‘mystical fallacy of democracy.’ Decrying romantic democratic models that privilege self-governance, he writes: “I have not happened to meet anybody, from a President of the United States to a professor of political science, who came anywhere near to embodying the accepted ideal of the sovereign and omnicompetent citizen.” Almost 90 years later, Lippmann’s pragmatism is as relevant as ever, and should be applied in new contexts where similar self-governance concerns persist. This paper does just that, repurposing Lippmann’s argument in the context of the ongoing debate over the role of the digital citizen in Big Data management. It is argued that proposals by the Federal Trade Commission, the White House and the US Congress, championing failed notice and choice privacy policy, perpetuate a self-governance fallacy comparable to Lippmann’s, referred to here as the fallacy of data privacy self-management . Even if the digital citizen had the faculties and the system for data privacy self-management, the digital citizen has little time for data governance. We desire the freedom to pursue the ends of digital production, without being inhibited by the means. We want privacy, and safety, but cannot complete all that is required for its protection. If it is true that the fallacy of democracy is similar to the fallacy of data privacy self-management, then perhaps the pragmatic solution is representative data management : a combination of non/for-profit digital dossier management via infomediaries that can ensure the protection of personal data, while freeing individuals from what Lippmann referred to as an ‘unattainable ideal.

Chapter I. Canadian Internet “Boomerang” Traffic and Mass NSA Surveillance: Responding to Privacy and Network Sovereignty Challenges

Introduction The 2013 revelations of US National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs that whistle-blower Edward Snowden’s release of hitherto secret internal documents brought to public attention have sparked a storm of controversy. Their breathtaking scope, scale, and questionable legality have led many countries to urgently assess the risks of NSA surveillance and to consider various actions to better protect the privacy of their citizens as well as their national sovereignt..

The Clickwrap: A Political Economic Mechanism for Manufacturing Consent on Social Media

The clickwrap is a digital prompt that facilitates consent processes by affording users the opportunity to quickly accept or reject digital media policies. A qualitative survey analysis was conducted ( N  = 513), assessing user interactions with the consent materials of a fictitious social media service, NameDrop. Findings suggest that clickwraps serve a political economic function by facilitating the circumvention of consent materials. Herman and Chomsky’s notion of the “buying mood” guides the analysis to analogize how social media maintain flow to monetized sections of services while diverting attention from policies that might encourage dissent. Clickwraps accomplish this through an agenda-setting function whereby prompts encouraging circumvention are made more prominent than policy links. Results emphasize that clickwraps discourage engagement with privacy and reputation protections by suggesting that consent materials are unimportant, contributing to the normalization of this circumvention. The assertion that clickwraps serve a political economic function suggests that capitalist methods of production are successfully being integrated into social media services and have the ability to manufacture consent