Technology, autonomy, and manipulation

Since 2016, when the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal began to emerge, public concern has grown around the threat of “online manipulation”. While these worries are familiar to privacy researchers, this paper aims to make them more salient to policymakers — first, by defining “online manipulation”, thus enabling identification of manipulative practices; and second, by drawing attention to the specific harms online manipulation threatens. We argue that online manipulation is the use of information technology to covertly influence another person’s decision-making, by targeting and exploiting their decision-making vulnerabilities. Engaging in such practices can harm individuals by diminishing their economic interests, but its deeper, more insidious harm is its challenge to individual autonomy. We explore this autonomy harm, emphasising its implications for both individuals and society, and we briefly outline some strategies for combating online manipulation and strengthening autonomy in an increasingly digital world

Online Manipulation: Hidden Influences in a Digital World

Privacy and surveillance scholars increasingly worry that data collectors can use the information they gather about our behaviors, preferences, interests, incomes, and so on to manipulate us. Yet what it means, exactly, to manipulate someone, and how we might systematically distinguish cases of manipulation from other forms of influence—such as persuasion and coercion—has not been thoroughly enough explored in light of the unprecedented capacities that information technologies and digital media enable. In this paper, we develop a definition of manipulation that addresses these enhanced capacities, investigate how information technologies facilitate manipulative practices, and describe the harms—to individuals and to social institutions—that flow from such practices. We use the term “online manipulation” to highlight the particular class of manipulative practices enabled by a broad range of information technologies. We argue that at its core, manipulation is hidden influence—the covert subversion of another person’s decision-making power. We argue that information technology, for a number of reasons, makes engaging in manipulative practices significantly easier, and it makes the effects of such practices potentially more deeply debilitating. And we argue that by subverting another person’s decision-making power, manipulation undermines his or her autonomy. Given that respect for individual autonomy is a bedrock principle of liberal democracy, the threat of online manipulation is a cause for grave concern

Privacy as Contextual Integrity

The practices of public surveillance, which include the monitoring of individuals in public through a variety of media (e.g., video, data, online), are among the least understood and controversial challenges to privacy in an age of information technologies. The fragmentary nature of privacy policy in the United States reflects not only the oppositional pulls of diverse vested interests, but also the ambivalence of unsettled intuitions on mundane phenomena such as shopper cards, closed-circuit television, and biometrics. This Article, which extends earlier work on the problem of privacy in public, explains why some of the prominent theoretical approaches to privacy, which were developed over time to meet traditional privacy challenges, yield unsatisfactory conclusions in the case of public surveillance. It posits a new construct, contextual integrity, as an alternative benchmark for privacy, to capture the nature of challenges posed by information technologies. Contextual integrity ties adequate protection for privacy to norms of specific contexts, demanding that information gathering and dissemination be appropriate to that context and obey the governing norms of distribution within it. Building on the idea of spheres of justice, developed by political philosopher Michael Walzer, this Article argues that public surveillance violates a right to privacy because it violates contextual integrity; as such, it constitutes injustice and even tyranny

Tonsillectomy: A reappraisal of its role in the prophylaxis of first attacks of rheumatic fever and acute glomerular nephritis

A survey was carried out to investigate the role of tonsillectomy in the prevention of  first attacks of rheumatic fever and acute glomerular nephritis. The conclusion is that tonsillectomy carried out after giving due consideration to age, family history and  history of recurrent tonsillitis, may provide an effective method for the prevention of  first attacks of rheumatic fever

Birth Order and the Academic and Social Success of College Students

The purpose of the study of Birth Order and the Academic and Social Success of College Students was to examine the relationship between birth order and the academic and social experiences that students have during their college years. An ideal college experience involves students being actively engaged in what they are learning and having positive social interactions and support networks. Unfortunately, the college experiences of many students fall short of these expectations and they struggle to continue their pursuit of higher education. Depression has become a serious concern on college campuses. Understanding the birth orders that may create challenges in achieving academic or social success could reduce the number of college students having negative college experiences. This study utilized an anonymous and voluntary survey where Syracuse University students were asked to evaluate their own personalities and college experiences as well as answer demographic questions such as age, gender, order of birth in family, and the genders and order of birth for their siblings. This study broke birth order down into two components: sibling role and gender role. Sibling role was defined as the role a person assumes as an older sibling, a younger sibling, neither, or both. Gender role was defined as the role a person assumes as a brother or sister in relation to other siblings, if any. Both sibling role and gender role were explored to determine if they influenced academic and social success. The results of the survey were statistically analyzed using SPSS to determine how birth order may affect academic and social success in college. There were 505 responses to the survey from undergraduate students at Syracuse University. It was found that only-borns and middle-borns who have the same gender as all of their siblings held the lowest scores for academic and social success. It was also found that these two populations were least likely to view their birth orders favorably. These findings were then used to discuss potential challenges facing these college students and to explore how social workers can use this study about birth order to address these problems. Knowledge and understanding of birth order and its effects may help social workers address unmet needs or disadvantages that children may be experiencing as a result of their sibling and gender roles. Having a better understanding of the relationship between birth order and academic and social success can help social workers address unmet needs of children in order to give them the tools to enjoy positive college experiences

A Critical Look at Decentralized Personal Data Architectures

While the Internet was conceived as a decentralized network, the most widely used web applications today tend toward centralization. Control increasingly rests with centralized service providers who, as a consequence, have also amassed unprecedented amounts of data about the behaviors and personalities of individuals. Developers, regulators, and consumer advocates have looked to alternative decentralized architectures as the natural response to threats posed by these centralized services. The result has been a great variety of solutions that include personal data stores (PDS), infomediaries, Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) systems, and federated and distributed social networks. And yet, for all these efforts, decentralized personal data architectures have seen little adoption. This position paper attempts to account for these failures, challenging the accepted wisdom in the web community on the feasibility and desirability of these approaches. We start with a historical discussion of the development of various categories of decentralized personal data architectures. Then we survey the main ideas to illustrate the common themes among these efforts. We tease apart the design characteristics of these systems from the social values that they (are intended to) promote. We use this understanding to point out numerous drawbacks of the decentralization paradigm, some inherent and others incidental. We end with recommendations for designers of these systems for working towards goals that are achievable, but perhaps more limited in scope and ambition