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The Open Society Information Program Research Digest tracks new scholarly articles and books on the social and political aspects of information and technology issues. The Digest is compiled by Evgeny Morozov. A related Twitter feed is also available at https://twitter.com/#!/morozov_links. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Open Society Foundations or the Information Program.
NEW ARTICLES AND PAPERS
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* "Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing" by Sarah Brayne - American Sociological Review
This article examines the intersection of two structural developments: the growth of surveillance and the rise of "big data." Drawing on observations and interviews conducted within the Los Angeles Police Department, the author offers an empirical account of how the adoption of big data analytics does--and does not--transform police surveillance practices. The author argues that the adoption of big data analytics facilitates amplifications of prior surveillance practices and fundamental transformations in surveillance activities.
source: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122417725865 ($)
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* "Algo-Rhythms and the Beat of the Legal Drum" by Ugo Pagallo - Philosophy & Technology
The paper focuses on concerns and legal challenges brought on by the use of algorithms. A particular class of algorithms that augment or replace analysis and decision-making by humans, i.e. data analytics and machine learning, is under scrutiny. The author argues that by entrusting many legal hard cases to algorithms, humans still bear full responsibility for the judgment of what is socially, ethically, and legally "plain" and "hard" in social affairs. The balance between delegation of decisions to algorithms and non-delegation will be the leitmotiv of the algorithmic society, argues the author.
source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13347-017-0277-z ($)
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* "A Posthuman Data Subject? The Right to Be Forgotten and Beyond" by Jannice Käll - German Law Journal
Arguing that digital technologies greatly obfuscate the boundaries between persons and things, this article draws a parallel to how the continuous expansion of digital technologies also affects critical understandings of how "data" and human personhood are produced in legal theory. Reviewing the new data protection legislation, and especially the Right to Be Forgotten rule with its attempt to strike the balance between the privacy interests of humans and the business needs of the infosphere, the author argues that the construction of new human rights around data protection would benefit from understanding how the theoretical separation between "humans" and "data" is in itself an effect of advanced capitalism.
source: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56330ad3e4b0733dcc0c8495/t/59a9a6f559cc685ded692259/1504290550021/05+Vol_18_No_05_Kall.pdf (free)
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* "Cyber Insurance" by Pythagoras Petratos et al. - book chapter
This article offers an accessible introduction to the topic of cyber insurance. The authors describe the different types or risks as well as uncertainty and ignorance related to cyber security. A framework for catastrophes linked to cyber-events is presented. It is assessed which risks might be insurable or uninsurable. Authors also discuss the evolution and challenges of cyber insurance and propose some thoughts for the further development of cyber insurance markets.
source: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-06091-0_25-1 ($)
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* "Online Network Organization of Barcelona en Comú, an Emergent Movement-Party" by Pablo Aragón et al. - Computational Social Networks
The article explores the novelty of the emerging grassroots party Barcelona en Comú that won the 2015 Barcelona City Council election. On the one hand, it came out of a social movement that was based on a decentralized structure. On the other hand, political science literature postulates that parties develop oligarchical leadership structures. Exploring this tension through the lens of the party's Twitter activity, this article finds that while traditional parties are organized in a single cluster, for Barcelona en Comú two well-defined groups co-exist: a centralized cluster led by the candidate and party accounts, and a decentralized cluster with the movement activists.
source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40649-017-0044-4 ($)
NEW AND NOTEWORTHY BOOKS
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* "Google and Democracy: Politics and the Power of the Internet" by Sean Richey & J. Benjamin Taylor (Routledge)
This book explores the influence of Google on American politics, specifically on direct democracy. Using original experiments and nationally representative cross-sectional data, the authors show how Google Search returns quality information, that users click on quality information, and gain political knowledge and other contingent benefits. Additionally, they correlate Google usage with real-world voting behavior on direct democracy. The authors conclude that Google Search is a powerful and important component to American political life in the twenty-first century, yet its influence is poorly researched or understood.
source: https://www.amazon.com/Google-Democracy-Politics-Power-Internet/dp/1138066451/
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* "The Political Economy of Robots: Prospects for Prosperity and Peace in the Automated 21st Century" edited by Ryan Kiggins (Palgrave Macmillan)
This collection examines the implications of technological automation for global prosperity and peace. Focusing on robots, information communication technologies, and other automation technologies, contributors to this book offer brief interventions that assess how automation may alter extant political, social, and economic institutions, norms, and practices that comprise the global political economy. The collection deals directly with such issues as automated production, trade, war, state sanctioned robot violence, financial speculation, transnational crime, and policy decision making.
source: https://www.amazon.com/Political-Economy-Robots-Prosperity-International/dp/3319514652/
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* "Bulk Collection: Systematic Government Access to Private-Sector Data" edited by Fred H. Cate & James X. Dempsey (Oxford University Press)
This book draws on comparative methods to examine national practices and laws regarding systematic government access to personal information held by private-sector companies. These data collection programs, often undertaken in the name of national security, were cloaked in secrecy and largely immune from oversight, posing serious threats to personal privacy. This book contains twelve updated country reports plus eleven analytic chapters that present descriptive and normative frameworks for assessing national surveillance laws, survey evolving international law and human rights principles applicable to government surveillance, and describe oversight mechanisms.
source: https://www.amazon.com/Bulk-Collection-Systematic-Government-Private-Sector/dp/0190685514
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* "Documenting Americans: A Political History of National ID Card Proposals in the United States" by Magdalena Krajewsk (Cambridge University Press)
This book offers the first political history of national ID card proposals and developments in identity policing in the United States. The book focuses on the period from 1915 to 2016, including the post-9/11 debates and policy decisions regarding the introduction of technologically-advanced identification documents. The author debunks two common myths: that Americans are opposed to national ID cards and that American policymakers never propose national ID cards.
source: https://www.amazon.com/Documenting-Americans-Political-National-Proposals-ebook/dp/B074XF8N5K
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* "Robot Ethics 2.0: From Autonomous Cars to Artificial Intelligence" edited by Patrick Lin, Keith Abney, Ryan Jenkins (Oxford University Press)
Contributors to this book argue that, as robots slip into more domains of human life -- from the operating room to the bedroom -- they take on our morally important tasks and decisions, as well as create new risks from psychological to physical. This, according to the book, makes it all the more urgent to study their ethical, legal, and policy impacts. In particular, this volume looks toward autonomous cars here as an important case study that cuts across diverse issues, from liability to psychology to trust and more.
source: https://www.amazon.com/Robot-Ethics-2-0-Autonomous-Intelligence/dp/0190652950/
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