News digest | Open Society Information Program | Week ending October 23, 2020 ==================================================== The Information Program NEWS DIGEST, published on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month, aims to update colleagues in the Open Society Foundations and friends further afield about the news, opinions and events the Program team have been watching this fortnight. The views expressed in these stories do not necessarily reflect those of the Information Program or the Open Society Foundations. Prepared by Wendy M. Grossman. Current and former grantees featured in this issue: Access Now, Article 19, Citizen Lab, Derechos Digitales, EDRi, EFF, Fundación Karisma, Open Rights Group, Privacy International, R3D, SPARC, Stiftung Neue Verantwortung. NEWS ===== China Publishes Draft Data Protection Law ---------------------------------------------------------------------- China has published its draft data protection law, Cao Siqi and Chen Qingqing report at Global Times. Companies in violation could face fines of up to CNY50 million ($7.4 million), or 5% of their previous year's turnover; however legal experts say the law does not provide significant punishment for data breaches. Infrastructure operators and entities that send significant amounts of personal information overseas will require a security assessment from the Chinese authorities. https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1203363.shtml Five Eyes Alliance Calls for Encryption Backdoors ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Members of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance, along with government representatives for Japan and India, have published a statement calling on technology companies to come up with a solution for providing law enforcement access to end-to-end encrypted communications, Catalin Cimpanu reports at ZDNet. The call for backdoors includes encrypted instant messaging, custom encrypted applications, device encryption, and encryption across integrated platforms. In response, the Global Encryption Coalition, whose members include ACLU, Article 19, Citizen Lab, Derechos Digitales, EFF, Fundación Karisma, Open Rights Group, Privacy International, R3D, and Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, calls the statement "ill-considered". https://www.zdnet.com/article/five-eyes-governments-india-and-japan-make-new-call-for-encryption-backdoors/ https://www.globalencryption.org/2020/10/cdt-gpd-and-internet-society-reject-time-worn-argument-for-encryption-backdoors/ New Cambridge Analytica Documents Show Electoral Lawbreaking ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Campaign Legal Center has filed a complaint with the US Federal Election Commission that the 2016 campaign to elect Donald Trump broke election rules by coordinating behind the scenes with the Super PAC Make American Number 1, Garance Burke reports at AP. The complaint is based on a new cache of documents obtained from former Cambridge Analytica insider Brittany Kiser. Both the Super PAC and Cambridge Analytica were owned by billionaire Robert Mercer. In a Twitter thread, Carole Cadwalladr, who originally broke the Cambridge Analytica story, ties together details of the case relating to the UK's 2016 EU referendum vote: the documents show that Aggregate IQ, which was contracted by Dominic Cummings for the pro-Leave campaign, was, despite many denials, operating as a single entity with Cambridge Analytica. https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-donald-trump-political-action-committees-elections-campaigns-42a5705b23bbbc780083f57b071bbcb0 https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/131737980318456627 Sandvine Equipment Used for Internet Censorship in Fifteen Countries ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The US private equity-based company Sandvine has sold its network traffic management equipment to governments in Belarus, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Eritrea, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Sudan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan, who have used it to impose politically motivated censorship of the internet, Ryan Gallegher reports at Bloomberg. Sandvine has canceled its end user license agreement with Belarus, calling the country's use of its equipment "a human rights violation", and US Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has called on the company to reassess its deals in other countries where its equipment could be used to limit internet freedom. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-08/sandvine-s-tools-used-for-web-censoring-in-more-than-a-dozen-nations Pandemic Fuels Worldwide Digital Repression ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Political leaders worldwide are using the pandemic as a pretext to limit access to information, censor criticism, build new technological systems of social control, and expand surveillance, Adrian Shahbaz and Allie Funk find in the latest Freedom House report. Even before the pandemic, this year had already seen numerous blocks on independent news sites and arrests on dubious charges of spreading misinformation, as well as a trend toward splintering the internet. In a blog posting, Reuters Institute fellow Richard Allan, director of policy in Europe for Facebook between 2009 and 2019, discusses the hard choices that must be made to solve the conflict between data protection laws and the desire for free data flows. The Economist reports that a new study finds a link between the rise of populist parties and incumbents' loss of support, and the rise in mobile internet access since 2010. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2020/pandemics-digital-shadow https://regulate.tech/data-your-place-or-mine-28th-sept-2020/ https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/10/10/faith-in-government-declines-when-mobile-internet-arrives Facebook Deletes QAnon ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Facebook has announced it will delete all QAnon pages, groups, and Instagram accounts and its Dangerous Organizations Operations team will continue to enforce the policy, Matt Stieb reports at New York Magazine. At Bloomberg, Mark Bergen and Joshua Brustein report that YouTube will follow suit if QAnon or other conspiracy theories target specific people or groups; they are hoping to continue to facilitate news and political commentary on its service while expanding its hate and harassment policies to include conspiracies justifying real world violence. At Rolling Stone, EJ Dickson reported in July that TikTok had begun banning hashtags associated with QAnon. At CNN, Bronte Lord and Richa Naik interview a former QAnon follower who believes a period of depression led him to be taken in. After two years, logical inconsistencies led him to question his beliefs and find the subReddits r/Qult_Headquarters and QAnonCasualties and their communities of support. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/10/facebook-bans-qanon-accounts-across-all-its-platforms.html https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-15/youtube-follows-facebook-in-banning-qanon-but-with-caveats https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/16/tech/qanon-believer-how-he-got-out/index.html FEATURES AND ANALYSIS ==================== Facebook's Algorithm Changes Deliberately Throttled Left-Wing News Sites ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at the Wall Street Journal, Deepa Seetharaman and Emily Glazer trace Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's development into an active political operator. Since 2016, Zuckerberg has focused on making sure Facebook wouldn't be seen as partisan while maintaining relationships with Jared Kushner and others in the Trump administration. In late 2017, when Facebook changed its algorithm to de-emphasize political news and saw an outsize impact on conservatives, Facebook redesigned the algorithms to have greater impact on left-wing sites such as Mother Jones. In 2019, Zuckerberg blocked the local news sites network Courier Newsroom as a "partisan-backed site". In a Twitter thread, Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery details the impact of these decisions, which have cost the site between $400,000 and $600,000 a year. At Mother Jones, editorial director Ben Dreyfuss details the history of his magazine's relations with Facebook. At Columbia Journalism Review, Emily Bell and Sara Sheridan explain why distinguishing partisan-backed sites from news is so difficult for Google and Facebook. At the New York Times, Davey Alba and Jack Nicas report that the gap left by the closure of an estimated 2,100 local newspapers across the US is being filled by a nationwide operation of 1,300 local sites that publish propaganda ordered up by Republican groups and PR operatives. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-mark-zuckerberg-learned-politics-11602853200 https://twitter.com/ClaraJeffery/status/1317191129964556288 https://www.motherjones.com/media/2020/10/now-we-know-facebook-made-changes-to-show-you-less-news-from-mother-jones https://www.cjr.org/analysis/google-and-facebook-have-a-news-labeling-problem.php https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/18/technology/timpone-local-news-metric-media.html Vaccine Acceptance Requires Building Trust ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at the New York Times, Jenny Anderson profiles anthropologist Heidi Larson, founder of the Vaccine Confidence Project. The problem in vaccine hesitancy, Larson says, is not misinformation but a lack of trust. Persuading people to rethink their beliefs requires understanding and answering individuals' real concerns rather than simply telling them facts public health authorities think they need to know. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/health/coronavirus-vaccine-hesitancy-larson.html UK NGOs Face Constrained Future ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this blog posting at Bond Funding Group, Mike Wright find that only 48% of its 93 UK NGO member respondents are likely to still be in operation in 2022 owing to the combined impact of Brexit, the recession, cuts to official development assistance, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Most expect their income to drop and are implementing cost-cutting measures such as redundancies, pay freezes, recruitment freezes, and furloughs. Small NGOs are particularly vulnerable to closure./ https://www.bond.org.uk/news/2020/10/falling-income-redundancies-and-programme-cuts-can-ngos-survive-the-next-two-years Institutional Blind Spots Fuel Persistence of Legacy Systems ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this article at Medium, former Dot Everyone director Rachel Coldicutt discusses the institutional blind spots and complexities that lead to dangerously bad decisions such as Public Health England's mistaken reliance on an antiquated Excel spreadsheet to manage positive COVID tests. Legacy technologies and ignored individual employees who know how to run the systems they're embedded in are everywhere because relying on human ingenuity is cheaper than investing in more modern technology. The situation is made worse when those in charge buy quick-fix technology - in the UK government's case, Palantir's Foundry system - without ensuring that the eventual users understand what they're doing. At New York Magazine, Sharon Weinberger studies how Palantir, now on the eve of going public, has marketed itself as superior technology while losing half a billion dollars a year,. https://medium.com/@rachelcoldicutt/magical-thinking-and-maintenance-61aeeb796043 https://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2020/09/inside-palantir-technologies-peter-thiel-alex-karp.html EU: Placing Human Rights at the Center of the Digital Services Act ---------------------------------------------------------------------- On this page, Access Now provides three position papers whose policy recommendations are intended to put users' rights at the center of the EU's in-progress Digital Services Act, an initiative to regulate online digital platforms. Access Now proposes gradually increasing responsibilities for gatekeeper companies, building in redress for people using the platforms, and learning from GDPR to create an effective oversight body. In a blog posting, EDRi executive director Claire Fernandez explains why the legislation is important and outlines EDRi's efforts to push it in the direction of human rights. https://www.accessnow.org/eu-digital-services-act/ https://edri.org/our-work/digital-services-act-what-we-learned-about-tackling-the-power-of-digital-platforms/ COVID-19 Open Research Dataset Finds Wide Adoption ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In this posting, SPARC discusses the free and open COVID-19 Open Research Dataset, which already holds 85,000 scholarly articles related to the virus and continues to grow. Hosted by the Allen Institute for AI and developed in partnership with the National Library of Medicine and others, the dataset enables researchers to use machine learning and AI to identify new approaches to help end the pandemic. The dataset began with 29,000 articles from 50 publishers; as of September, it has been accessed more than 60 million times. https://sparcopen.org/news/2020/strong-community-response-to-free-scholarly-article-access-to-fight-covid-19/ *** DIARY ============== *** In light of the coronavirus outbreak, please follow your organization's travel guidelines, and check links to events listed below regularly for participation restrictions and updates as to whether events will go ahead.*** If you would like your event listed in this mail, email info.digest@opensocietyfoundations.org. ONLINE EVENTS Open Data Institute Summit ---------------------------------------- November 10, 2020 The annual ODI Summit invites people from across the world to discuss how humanity can harness the power of data in a changing world. https://theodi.org/event/odi-summit-2020/ TICTec Seminars ---------------------------------------- mySociety is running a series of events between September and November on open data (September 22), digitizing parliaments (October 20), and the climate crisis (November, day TBC). https://tictec.mysociety.org/seminars/2020 Web Summit ---------------------------------------- December 2-4, 2020 Lisbon, Portugal At a time of great uncertainty for many industries and indeed, the world itself, Web Summit gathers the founders and CEOs of technology companies, fast-growing startups, policymakers and heads of state to ask a simple question: Where to next? https://websummit.com/ Workshop on the Economics of Information Security ---------------------------------------- December 14-15, 2020 Brussels, Belgium The annual workshop on the economics of information security is a cross-disciplinary event to develop more effective approaches to information security. https://weis2020.econinfosec.org/ ONGOING Ada Lovelace Institute ---------------------------------------- London's Ada Lovelace Institute, founded in 2019 to ensure the ethical use of AI, is running a series of events on the issues surrounding the use of technologies in response to the pandemic. The October 29 event considers what forms of mandatory reporting can help achieve public sector accountability. https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/events/ Bace Cybersecurity Institute ---------------------------------------- Recent webinars sponsored by Bace Security include a "fireside" discussion of with prominent women in security, a discussion of the security problems in online voting, and methods for privacy-protecting digital contact tracing. https://www.bacesecurity.org/page/2686 Benchmark Initiative ---------------------------------------- The Benchmark Initiative is running regular events on topics such as the use of location data to end the global sanitation crisis, the safe use of location data in human migration; data, power, and the pandemic; and managing social distancing in public spaces. All events are posted on Vimeo soon after they conclude (https://vimeo.com/user40391998/videos). https://benchmarkinitiative.com/event Civic Hall ---------------------------------------- New York's Civic Hall has moved a number of events online. Recent events include political influence, a session on designing stories to expose racial inequities, and an interactive discussion of the new book by Sasha Costanza-Chock, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need. https://civichall.org/event-calendar/ Data & Society ---------------------------------------- Data & Society has moved its weekly Databites and Network Power Hours programs into online interactive formats for the rest of 2020. Databites: https://datasociety.net/library/design-justice/ Network Power Hours: https://datasociety.net/library/community-and-accessibility-online/ EFF ---------------------------------------- EFF and its local counterparts in the Electronic Frontier Alliance are running numerous events on subjects such as technology education, open source, voting security, and content moderation. https://www.eff.org/events/list?type=event Future in Review ---------------------------------------- Future in Review is running a series of online "FiReSide" events. Recent topics include Chinese-US relations after the presidential election, and the future technology struggle. https://www.futureinreview.com/fireside/ Legal Frontiers in Digital Media 2020 ---------------------------------------- The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology's online seminars on emerging legal issues at the intersection of digital media, freedom of speech, and law include AI, privacy law, technology law as a vehicle for anti-racism, and a look ahead to the next telecommunications act. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/ London Futurists ---------------------------------------- The London Futurists group, led by former Psion and Symbian architect David Wood, is presenting near-weekly speaker-led events focusing on potential radical transformations of humanity and society. Upcoming topics include anticipating future pandemics and a discussion of Michael Baxter's new book, Living in the Age of the Jerk. Event recordings are made available soon after meetings conclude. https://londonfuturists.com/forthcoming-meetings/ https://www.meetup.com/London-Futurists/ Open Data Institute ---------------------------------------- The ODI's Friday lunchtime (London time) talks have moved online. These one-hour talks cover topics such as data ethics, social equity, trust, and converting weather into music. https://theodi.org/events/talks/ Open Rights Group ---------------------------------------- The Open Rights Group and its local offshoots are running frequent online presentations and discussions of digital privacy, democracy, and data exploitation. Recent topics have included the launch of ORG's data and democracy report, a proposed law to ensure that contact tracingcontact-tracing apps are surrounded with privacy-protecting safeguards, and the effect of the pandemic on democratic institutions. https://www.openrightsgroup.org/events/ Public Knowledge ---------------------------------------- Public Knowledge is running public web events on subjects such as algorithmic amplification of hate speech, the survival of local journalism, and how to protect privacy during a pandemic. https://www.publicknowledge.org/events/ RUSI ---------------------------------------- London's Royal United Services Institute is running frequent online events considering topics relating to international politics, terrorism, financial crime, policing, and warfare, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic and the changes it will bring. https://rusi.org/event/mapping-pandemic-policing-uk-during-covid-19 Singularity University ---------------------------------------- Singularity University's upcoming events include reimagining primary education and a series of executive programs aimed at various countries. https://su.org/events/ PHYSICAL WORLD EVENTS POSTPONED International Open Data Conference ---------------------------------------- New date in 2021 TBC Nairobi, Kenya The sixth edition of IODC will be hosted by the government of Kenya with support from the OD4D Network, IDRC, and the World Bank. The conference program will be co-created with the community via an open call for proposals to ensure a diverse agenda of interactive sessions, workshops, and ancillary events. A special focus will be placed on building bridges with the broader data community, exploring how to bring the power of the newest technologies to some of the world's oldest problems, and creating new models for collaboration in order to drive social and economic value from open data in Africa and around the world. https://opendatacon.org/ MOVED ONLINE Web Summit ---------------------------------------- December 2-4, 2020 Lisbon, Portugal At a time of great uncertainty for many industries and indeed, the world itself, Web Summit gathers the founders and CEOs of technology companies, fast-growing startups, policymakers and heads of state to ask a simple question: Where to next? https://websummit.com/ MOVED ONLINE WEIS ---------------------------------------- December 14-15, 2020 Brussels, Belgium The annual workshop on the economics of information security is a cross-disciplinary event to develop more effective approaches to information security. https://weis2020.econinfosec.org/ Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection ---------------------------------------- January 27-29, 2021 Brussels, Belgium As a world-leading multidisciplinary conferenceconference, CPDP offers the cutting edge in legal, regulatory, academic and technological development in privacy and data protection. Within an atmosphere of independence and mutual respect, CPDP 2021, "Enforcing Rights in a Changing World", will gather academics, lawyers, practitioners, policy-makers, industry, and civil society from all over the world to offer an arena to exchange ideas and discuss the latest emerging issues and trends. https://www.cpdpconferences.org/ MozFest 2021 ---------------------------------------- March 2021 Amsterdam, The Netherlands MozFest programs and events are co-created by a group of dynamic, vibrant and varied community collaborators, all working towards one goal: the opportunity for everyone to live a healthy online life. https://www.mozillafestival.org/en/ Wikimania 2021 ---------------------------------------- TBD Bangkok, Thailand Wikimania 2020, now Wikimania 2021, will be the 16th Wikimania conference, an annual event for the international Wikimedia community. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2020 Thotcon ---------------------------------------- May 14-15, 2021 Chicago, Illinois, USA The 11th Chicago-based Thotcon hacking conference is a non-commercial event intended to combine a top-quality information security conference with a casual and social experience. https://thotcon.org/ TILTing Perspectives ---------------------------------------- May 19-21, 2021 Tilburg, the Netherlands TILTing perspectives 2021 brings together, for the seventh time, researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and civil society at the intersection of law and regulation, technology, and society to share insights, exchange ideas, and formulate, discuss, and suggest answers to contemporary challenges related to technological innovation. https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/institutes-and-research-groups/tilt/events/tilting-perspectives Privacy Law Scholars 2021 ---------------------------------------- June 3-4, 2021 TBC Washington, DC, USA Privacy Law Scholars is a paper workshop intended to improve the quality of legal scholarship in the area of privacy. Participants submit works-in-progress for workshop discussions led by commenters on the papers. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/2020-privacy-law-scholars-conference/ Digitising Early Childhood ---------------------------------------- June 2021 Milan, Italy Contemporary children and their parents are inventing what it is to have a digital childhood, and in doing so are introducing families, schools and policy makers to new ways of thinking, doing and being. This conference discusses and expands research trajectories through these uncertainties and aims to build bridges across the different disciplines and strands of research in this area. It will forge a new way forward and consolidate the base of what we already know, revealing what we have yet to investigate and address, and what important insights are emerging that must be taken seriously. http://www.digitisingearlychildhood.com/2020-conference.html CPDP LatAm 2021 ---------------------------------------- Postponed from June 23-25, 2020 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil The first Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection Latin America will be held in conjunction with the first Latin American Privacy Law Scholars conference and MyData's first Latin American meeting. The theme will be "Data Protection in Latin America: Democracy, Innovation, and Regulation". The organizers hope it will be a unique opportunity to bring together varied and complementary perspectives on data protection and its impact on democracy, innovation, and regulation in Latin America. https://cpdp.lat/en/ DEF CON 29 ---------------------------------------- August 5-8, 2021 Las Vegas, Nevada, USA Def Con is one of the oldest and best-attended hacker conferences. Each year it attracts thousands of professional and amateur security researchers. https://www.defcon.org Singularity University Global Summit 2021 ---------------------------------------- August 23-25, 2021 Los Angeles, California, USA Global Summit 2021 Singularity University's premier annual gathering brings together 2,000 changemakers for talks on AI, augmented/virtual reality, blockchain, the future of work, impact, investing, robotics and more. https://su.org/summits/su-global-summit/ World Library and Information Congress 2021 ---------------------------------------- August 2021 Rotterdam, Netherlands WLIC is the annual conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). https://2020.ifla.org/ *** Hear more from the Information Program! ================================ If you have been forwarded this email by a friend and wish to subscribe to this fortnightly digest, please visit: https://opensocietyfoundations.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=52d98944f5466486ab8567329&id=1c0675de1d. 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News digest | Open Society Information Program | Week ending October 23, 2020
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